ABSTRACT
Granular materials are widely used as unbound aggregate layers in the construction of various transportation infrastructure components such as highway and airport pavement base courses and railroad ballast layers. Strength, stability, and load transfer are primarily governed by inter-particle contact forces established from non-uniform spatial distributions, friction between particles governed by textural micro irregularities on the surfaces, and the shapes, sizes, and angularities of the individual particles in the granular assembly. A better insight into this load transfer through particle contacts is essential to properly model the stiffness and deformation behaviour of these constructed unbound aggregate layers.
