Abstract: Six typical shapes of rockfill were selected and simulated by clusters of round particles. Two kinds of contact constitutive models were adopted to establish multi-shape numerical model of rockfill. The process of particles crushing under vibration compaction was simulated and the mechanism of crushing was discussed. A quantitative calculation method of crushing was proposed, which can be used to analyze the variation of grain size distribution curve before and after particle crushing. The effect of different contact constitutive models on the numerical results was also discussed in detail. The numerical results indicate that the tensile cracking is dominated and the shear failure zone appears only after several numbers of vibration rolling compaction. Although the crushing ratio calculated from the proposed quantitative calculation method results is higher than the test data for the large particles; the grain size distribution curve predicted from the numerical method has a good agreement with the test results on the whole. The predicted results from the numerical models of parallel-bounded law are more rational than that from the contact bounded model. The numerical results from the 6 shapes models indicate that the crushing ratio decreases with the increasing of shape coefficients. The rectangular particles are more fragile than other shapes. These study results of different particle shapes indicate the numerical model consists of 6 different shapes are more rational than pure round particles or single non-round particles.

Key words: rockfill, particle crushing, particle shape, contact constitutive model