Experimental investigation on the grain-scale compression behavior of loose wet granular material

The behavior of model granular materials (glass beads) wetted by a small quantity of liquid forming capillary bridges is studied by one-dimensional compression test combined with X-ray computed tomography (XRCT) observation. Special attention is paid to obtain very loose initial states (initial void ratio of about 2.30) stabilized by capillary cohesion. XRCT-based analyses involve spherical particle detection adapted to relatively low-resolution images, which enable heterogeneities to be visualized and microstructural information to be collected. This study on an ideal material provides an insight into the macroscopic compression behavior of wet granular materials based on the microstructural change, such as pore distance distribution, coordination number of contacts, coordination number of neighbors and number of contacts per grain.