Multiscale modeling of freeze-thaw behavior in granular media

This paper presents a hierarchical multiscale modeling paradigm to simulate the freeze-thaw behavior in granular media. The multiscale strategy features a hierarchical conjugate of a continuum-based mixture theory with a micromechanics-based homogenization technique. It enables the capturing of a typical freeze-thaw process in an engineering setting based on constitutive responses extracted directly from discrete element method (DEM) solution of representative volume elements (RVEs) affiliated with material points. Specifically, at the RVE scale, a simple phase transition model is proposed to consider the influence of freeze-thaw process on the strength of inter-particle contacts. The RVE model is further embedded in the material point of the continuum-based material point method (MPM) to solve initial and boundary value problems that involve freeze and thaw process. The proposed strategy effectively enables macro-micro scale bridging while bypassing the necessity of assuming phenomenological thermo-mechanical constitutive models. The multiscale framework is verified and validated before being used to predict engineering-scale thawing-induced slides of soils.

Automated summary

This paper introduces a hierarchical multiscale modeling paradigm for simulating freeze-thaw behavior in granular media. The approach combines a continuum-based mixture theory with a micromechanics-based homogenization technique, allowing for the simulation of freeze-thaw processes based on constitutive responses extracted from representative volume elements (RVEs) using the discrete element method (DEM). The proposed strategy bypasses the need for phenomenological thermo-mechanical constitutive models.