Particle crushing is commonly encountered during the storage, transportation, and handling of granular assemblies. This work is aimed at ascertaining the applicability of four particle breakage criteria frequently mentioned in literature. Discrete element method (DEM) simulations were conducted to investigate the crushing of spherical aggregates under multicontact loadings. Mean and major principal stress criteria, octahedral shear stress criterion, and maximal contact force (MCF) criterion were then evaluated based on the obtained DEM results. It is found that the first three parameters all vary with the number of loading contacts, demonstrating they cannot predict the crushing of particles under arbitrary loading configuration. Simulation results indicate that the MCF at crushing is related to the number and the spatial arrangement of loading contacts. Thus, strictly speaking, this parameter cannot uniquely define particle breakage either. The influences of the microstructural heterogeneity on the breakage strength of particle and also on the applicability of MCF criterion are discussed.

中文翻译：

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多接触载荷作用下球形骨料破碎的DEM研究

在颗粒组件的储存、运输和处理过程中通常会遇到颗粒破碎。这项工作旨在确定文献中经常提到的四种颗粒破碎标准的适用性。进行了离散元法 (DEM) 模拟以研究球形骨料在多接触载荷下的破碎。然后根据获得的 DEM 结果评估平均和主要主应力准则、八面体剪应力准则和最大接触力 (MCF) 准则。发现前三个参数都随着加载接触的数量而变化，表明它们无法预测任意加载配置下颗粒的破碎。仿真结果表明，破碎时的 MCF 与加载接触的数量和空间排列有关。因此，严格来说，该参数也不能唯一定义粒子破损。讨论了微观结构非均质性对颗粒断裂强度的影响以及对MCF准则适用性的影响。