ABSTRACT
This paper examines the effects of particle shape on the bearing capacity of railroad ballast in numerical simulations with discontinuous analysis. Aseries of numerical simulations that regard a ballast particle as a regular or an irregular polygon were performed. Here, the particle shape of railroad ballast in numerical models was evaluated by two kinds of analytical methods, namely “argument function” and “radius function.” Next, the correlations of the evaluation indexes of particle shape with the strength-deformation characteristics of granular materials in numerical models were examined. As the result, it can be observed that the particle shape of numerical models, especially the angularity has greater effect on the bearing capacity of railroad ballast than the sphericity, and that the imitation of the shape of real ballast particles makes analytical results similar to experimental results.
