ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CONCRETE ABSTRACTS PORTAL

  • The International Concrete Abstracts Portal is an ACI led collaboration with leading technical organizations from within the international concrete industry and offers the most comprehensive collection of published concrete abstracts.

International Concrete Abstracts Portal

  


Title: Development of a Computer Simulation Model for Packing of Concrete Aggregates

Author(s): K. Sobolev and A. Amirjanov

Publication: Symposium Paper

Volume: 266

Issue:

Appears on pages(s): 127-140

Keywords: aggregates; concrete mixture proportioning; packing algorithm; packing density; particle size distribution; simulation model.

DOI: 10.14359/51663277

Date: 10/1/2009

Abstract:
A simulation algorithm was developed for modeling the dense packing of large assemblies of particulate materials (in the order of millions). These assemblies represent the real aggregate systems of portland cement concrete. Two variations of the algorithm are proposed: Sequential Packing Model and Particles Suspension Model. A developed multi-cell packing procedure as well as fine adjustment of the algorithm’s parameters were useful to optimize the computational resources (i.e., to realize the trade-off between the memory and packing time). Some options to speed up the algorithm and to pack very large volumes of spherical entities (up to 10 millions) are discussed. The described procedure resulted in a quick method for packing of large assemblies of particulate materials. The influence of model variables on the degree of packing and the corresponding distribution of particles was analyzed. Based on the simulation results, different particle size distributions of particulate materials are correlated to their packing degree. The developed algorithm generates and visualizes dense packings corresponding to concrete aggregates. These packings show a good agreement with the standard requirements and available research data. The results of the research can be applied to the optimal proportioning of concrete mixtures.