Discrete element modeling of Rammed Earth walls

Several research studies have recently been carried out to investigate Rammed Earth (RE) material. Some of them attempted to simulate the RE’s mechanical behavior by using analytical or numerical models. These studies always assumed that there was perfect cohesion at the interface between earthen layers. This hypothesis proved to be acceptable for the case of vertical loading, but it could be questionable for horizontal loading. To address this problem, Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) seems to be relevant to simulate a RE wall. To our knowledge, no research has been conducted thus far using DEM to study a RE wall. This paper presents an assessment of the DEM’s robustness for RE walls. Thirteen parameters that were necessary for DEM were identified. The relevance of the model and the material parameters were assessed by comparing them with experimental results from the literature.