Investigation of the effects of particle size and model scale on the UCS and shear strength of concrete using PFC2D

In this paper, the effects of particle size and model scale of concrete has been investigated on the failure mechanism of PFC2D numerical models under uniaxial compressive test. For this purpose, rectangular models with same particle sizes and different model dimensions, i.e., $3mm{\times}6mm$, $6mm{\times}12mm$, $12mm{\times}24mm$, $25mm{\times}50mm$ and $54mm{\times}108mm$, were prepared. Also rectangular models with dimension of $54mm{\times}108mm$ and different particle sizes, i.e., 0.27 mm, 0.47 mm, 0.67 mm, 0.87 mm, 1.07 mm, 1.87 mm and 2.27 mm were simulated using PFC2D and tested under uniaxial compressive test. Concurrent with uniaxial test, direct shear test was performed on the numerical models. Dimension of the models were $75{\times}100mm$. Two narrow bands of particles with dimension of $37.5mm{\times}20mm$ were removed from upper and lower of the model to supply the shear test condition. The particle sizes in the models were 0.47 mm, 0.57 mm, 0.67 mm and 0.77 mm. The result shows that failure pattern was affected by model scale and particle size. The uniaxial compressive strength and shear strength were increased by increasing the model scale and particle size.