Granular Materials Committee

2023 Granular Materials Committee Student Winners

The Granular Materials Committee hosted the 2023 video competition for graduate students to present their research findings in experimental, computational and theoretical studies (students were allowed to submit in one of these categories) within the broad field of granular materials. As nearly every product, commodity, or infrastructure is constituted from, derived from, or supported by particulate materials through mining, agriculture, and/or chemical processing, the competition spans the engineering disciplines, applied mathematics, materials science and physics. The following winners were selected by a distinguished panel of jurors, from a number of outstanding submissions.

• Pouriya Pirmoradi (Computational Category)

  Eindhoven University of Technology,  Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Title: Multi-Scale Modeling of Fiber-Reinforced-Concrete Structures using Granular Micromechanics Approach

  Statement from judges:  "The author developed a computationally-efficient multiscale material model for the analysis and simulation of fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) structures following the granular micromechanics approach (GMA). The challenges are two-fold: (1) to model the microscale mechanisms, and (2) to establish a multiscale approach. The force-displacement functions that govern the tensile and compressive microscale behavior of FRC components were discussed. At the multiscale approach consists of finite element method at the macroscale and GMA at the microscale. The developed approach was used to simulate uniaxial tensile test, and uniaxial and triaxial compressive tests. The simulation results were found to compare very well with experiments on different FRC types. Parametric study with different fiber volume fraction and confinement was employed to demonstrate the practicality of the approach. Case study of biaxial test was discussed to show the effect of fiber on FRC compressive strength. Finally, simulation of 4-point bending test on FRC beam was discussed. It was shown that the numerical results have excellent agreement with experiments and explain the mechanisms that govern FRC behavior. The author is commended for demonstrating the capability of material mechanics and continuum analyses to develop improved predictions for fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) structures.”

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• Shumaiya Ferdoush (Experimental Category)

  Purdue University,  School of Mechanical Engineering,  West Lafayette, IN, USA
  Title: Fast Time-Resolved Micro-CT Imaging of Pharmaceutical Tablets: Insights into Water Uptake and Disintegration

  Statement from judges: “The author describes an experimental study of water uptake and subsequent disintegration of pharmaceutical tablets. The problem at the core of this presentation — water absorption and disintegration — was well-motivated as the most important quality control test for many pharmaceutical tablets. The main challenges associated with this problem were articulated as the time-consuming, trial-and-error, and destructive nature of the experimental testing currently in use in the industry. The author proposes a technical approach involving quantitative in-situ imaging of water absorption and tablet disintegration and development of reduced-order models for exploration and optimization of tablet design. The author’s presentation focuses on illustrating the results of an in-situ imaging study in which tablet swelling and cracking are quantified from x-ray micro-CT images obtained dynamically during the water absorption process. The results are analyzed in the context of governing equations, such as the classical Lucas-Washburn equation, and illustrate the effects of tablet density on swelling and disintegration rates. The author is commended for showing clear slides, animations, and for providing a straightforward presentation of a challenging problem.”

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• Muhammad Shahin (Theoretical Category)

  Purdue University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Ray W. Herrick Laboratories,
  West Lafayette, IN, USA
  Title: A Semi-Mechanistic Contact Law for Large Deformation Unconfined and Confined Compression of Plastic Spherical Particles with Power-Law Hardening

  Statement from judges: “The author has tackled the very important problem of formulating contact laws for the compaction of granular systems with large and permanent deformations. Available solutions in the literature are shown to be inadequate for both large deformations and also for different loading configurations. Departing from the similarity contact solutions of Storakers et al., the author is presenting semi-mechanistic solutions for contact force of both ideally plastic and power-law hardening particles as functions of normalized hardness and contact radius. Using proper curvature corrections, the author formulates the contact radius as a function of loading configuration. For normalized hardness, a piecewise continuous differentiable function based on loading regime and compressibility is formulated. Finally, comparing the results with detailed FEM analyses, the author shows a great match between their results and numerical simulations. The presenter is commended for the clear presentation of the their work, with nice slides, as well as their systematic approach toward solving this challenging problem. The presented results are certainly encouraging and we are looking forward to their future findings.”

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Previous Student Competition Winners

• 2023

  2023 WINNERS
  

  • Pouriya Pirmoradi (Computational Category), Eindhoven University of Technology,  Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
  • Shumaiya Ferdoush (Experimental Category), Purdue University,  School of Mechanical Engineering,  West Lafayette, IN, USA
  • Muhammad Shahin (Theoretical Category), Purdue University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, West Lafayette, IN, USA

  2023 COMPETITION CHAIRS
  

  • Marcial Gonzalez, Ph.D., Purdue University
  • Anthony D. Rosato, Ph.D., New Jersey Institute of Technology

  2023 COMPETITION JUDGES
  

  • Anil Misra, Ph.D., University of Kansas
  • Ryan Hurley Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
  • Payam Poorsolhjouy, Ph.D., Eindhoven University of Technology

• 2022

  2022 WINNERS
  

  • Abhishek Paul (Computational Category), Purdue University
  • Noor Mili (Computational Category), New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Dawa Seo (Experimental Category), Northwestern University

  2022 COMPETITION CHAIRS
  

  • Marcial Gonzalez, Ph.D., Purdue University
  • Anthony D. Rosato, Ph.D., New Jersey Institute of Technology

  2022 COMPETITION JUDGES
  

  • Anil Misra, Ph.D., University of Kansas
  • Mahdia Hattab, Ph.D., Universite de Lorraine
  • Matthew Kuhn, Ph.D., University of Portland
  • Ryan Hurley, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University

Award Recipients

• EMI Leonardo da Vinci Award

  2018
  Steve Waiching Sun, Ph.D. 
  Columbia University

• EMI Fellows

  2016
  Pierre-Yves Hicher, F.EMI
  Research Institute In Civil Eng. and Mechanics
  
  Ning Lu, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  Colorado School of Mines
  
  Ramesh Babu Malla, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  University of Connecticut
  
  2015
  Pierre-Yves Hicher, Ph.D. F.EMI
  Research Institute In Civil Eng. and Mechanics
  
  Ramesh Babu Malla, Ph.D., F.EMI, F.ASCE
  University of Connecticut
  

• Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize

  2023
  Steve Waiching Sun, Ph.D. for his fundamental contributions to computational and data-driven poromechanics.