Experimental study on the coefficient of restitution of grain against block interfaces for natural and engineered materials

The coefficient of restitution (COR) is an important input parameter in the numerical simulation of granular flows, as it governs the travel distance, the lateral spreading, and the design of barriers. In this study, a new custom-built micromechanical impact loading apparatus is presented along with impact experiments on engineered and natural materials. The COR and energy loss of various grains and base block combinations are studied, including fairly regular-shaped Leighton Buzzard sand (LBS) grains as a natural soil and granite or rubber as base blocks, apart from the use of engineered materials for the grains (chrome steel balls, glass balls) and blocks (stainless steel, brass). The repeatability of the new micromechanical impact loading apparatus was checked by impacting chrome steel balls on stainless steel block. In all the test combinations, the higher and lower values of the COR are found for granite block (ranging between 0.75 and 0.95) and rubber block (ranging between 0.37 and 0.44) combinations, respectively. For the tested grain-block combinations, lower values of COR were observed for impacts between materials of low values ofcomposite Young's modulus. However, within the narrow range ofcomposite surface roughness of the tested grain-block interfaces no particular trend was observed in the COR values. Compared to glass balls and chrome steel balls, greater scatter in the COR values is observed for natural sand grains. This is due to the variation of the elastic and morphological characteristics among individual LBS grains.