Abstract: Particles’ breakage has an important effect on the macromechanical behavior of granular materials. An elastoplastic model combined with an experiential crushing equation is suggested for crushable granular materials based on Cosserat continuum, Hardin’s definition of relative breakage , which is used to quantify the extent of crushing, can be obtained from the crushing equation according to normal crushing stress. The internal length scale of Cosserat continuum theory is related to the average particle size of granular materials; and the evolution of which is computed by the relative breakage . Numerical examples focus mainly on the effect of particle crushing on the bearing capacity and localization of plastic strain. Numerical results illustrate that particles crush mainly in shear band, and shear band obviously becomes narrow and the equivalent plastic strain gradient increases when considering crushing.

Key words: granular materials, Cosserat continuum, particle breakage, strain localization.