Effective elastic moduli of heterogeneous granular solids (Q1309511)

A micro-mechanical model is employed to study the elastic stress-strain behavior of heterogeneous granular solids. The granular material is idealized as a collection of spherical particles interacting through inter-particle contacts. Based on this idealized model, an equivalent continuum description of the granular solid is envisaged and the overall stiffness tensor of the granular solid is determined in terms of the stiffness of the inter-particle deformation.