A 3D Grain-Based Model for Simulating the Micromechanical Behavior of Salt Rock

A novel 3D grain-based model (3D-GBM) based on Voronoi tessellation technology is proposed and implemented into a three-dimensional particle flow code (PFC 3D ) to investigate the micromechanical properties of salt rock at the grain scale. Parameter calibration is performed for numerical test configurations with various microparameters matched with the macroresponses observed in laboratory experiments (e.g., uniaxial compression test, triaxial compression test, and the Brazilian splitting test). Verifications comparing the simulated results and laboratory tests indicate that the 3D-GBM provides an alternative and promising approach for efficiently reproducing the micromechanical behavior of crystalline salt rocks.