Shear stress behavior in mesoscale simulations of granular materials

3D mesoscale simulations of shock propagation in porous solids and powders have been performed with the Eulerian hydrocode GEODYN. The results indicate that voids can have a profound effect on the stress state in the material behind the shock front. The simulations can explain experimentally observed wave profiles that are difficult to interpret in the context of the classical elastic-plastic theory. In particular, a quasielastic precursor is observed in reshock simulations. This effect persists even at extremely low porosity values, down to 0.1% by volume. Stress relaxation is pronounced in simulations involving wave propagation, but is not observed in uniform ramp loading. In this sense, the relaxation phenomenon is non-local in nature and classic continuum models are inadequate for its description. Simulations show that the response of highly porous powders is dominated by deviatoric stress relaxation in the shock regime. We propose an enhancement which can be easily integrated into most existing porous material continuum models for modeling the shockinduced relaxation phenomena observed in the mesoscale simulation. The model calculates the microkinetic energy generated by dynamic loading and stores it as an internal state variable. The rate of production and dissipation of microkinetic energy and other model parameters are calibrated based on the mesoscale results. The augmented continuum model represents the deviatoric stress behavior observed under different regimes of dynamic loading.