Analysis of the thermomechanical response of granular materials by infrared thermography

Abstract

© The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2019. Granular materials are defined as a collection of solid particles whose macroscopic mechanical behavior is governed by the interaction forces between the particles. Full-field experimental data on these materials remain few compared to numerical results, even though a wide literature deals with optical imaging (combined with digital image correlation) and photoelasticimetry (to measure shear stresses in particles made of birefringent materials). We applied infrared thermography to analyze two-dimensional granular media composed of cylinders and subjected to confined compression. We analyzed the calorific signature of the contact forces, especially by revealing mechanical dissipation in the interparticle friction zones. Moreover, two constitutive materials featuring entropic and isentropic elasticity were employed to compare distinct types of thermoelastic couplings. Couplings and mechanical dissipation were separately identified at two observation scales. The perspective of this work is the experimental analysis of soft granular media.