293

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

Stress Inhomogeneity in Powder Specimens Tested in the Jenike

Shear Cell: Myth or Fact?
Ecevit Bilgili, Juan Yepes, Luke Stephenson, Kerry Johanson, Brian Scarlett*
(Received: 30 July 2003; in revised form: 24 December 2003; accepted: 2 January 2004)

Abstract
In the mechanical characterization of powders using
the direct shear testers such as the Jenike shear cell, the
existence of a uniform or well-defined stress field in a
powder specimen is assumed. This assumption has not
been subjected to any serious scrutiny in the literature.
In this study, the normal stress variation in a silica
powder was locally determined by locating a pressuresensitive TekScan pad at the bottom section of a Jenike
shear cell. A computer simulation of the consolidation
and pre-shearing stages of the Jenike test procedure

was performed using the Discrete Element Method

(DEM). The paper presents both experimental and
computational evidence for the existence of a complex
stress field in the powder specimen, thus clearly
invalidating the long-standing stress homogeneity assumption in the direct shear testing of powders. The
implications of the stress inhomogeneity in terms of the
accuracy of the material properties extracted from the
Jenike test are also presented.

Keywords: computer simulations, DEM, Jenike shear cell, powder testing, stress inhomogeneity

1 Introduction
The accurate measurement of the bulk properties of
powders and granular materials is critical to the proper
design of storage and processing equipment that handle
these bulk materials. In addition, the cohesive flow
properties are often used to compare the quality of
products. However, testing methods produce results that
have a large uncertainty causing repeated measurements
to differ by substantial amounts. This indicates that
something in the test method or material may be
responsible for the lack of consistency in the test results.
All too often, different testers used to measure bulk
cohesion produce values that disagree with one another
[1, 2] and do not predict the actual process behavior. If
the angle of internal friction and cohesion are true
properties of the bulk material, they should ideally be
independent of the type of the tester. The apparent
discrepancies between these test methods may indicate a
*

E. Bilgili, Post-Doctoral Research Associate; J. Yepes,

Graduate Student; L. Stephenson, Graduate Student; K.
Johanson, Industrial Professor; B. Scarlett, Research Professor; Particle Engineering Research Center, University of
Florida, 205 PS&T Bldg., P.O. Box 116135, Gainesville, FL,
32611-6135 (USA).
E-Mail: ebilgili@erc.ufl.edu

4 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

lack of control of the stress-strain states within each

tester.
In industrial situations, the cohesive property of interest
is the unconfined yield strength. This quantity is defined
as the major principal stress that would cause an
unconfined bulk material to fail in shear at a free
interface. Figure 1 shows a typical yield locus for a bulk

Fig. 1: A typical yield locus generated by direct shear measurements. The stress homogeneity is inherently assumed in the
construction of the yield locus.
DOI: 10.1002/ppsc.200400942

294
material. In the shear stress-normal stress space, this
yield locus represents the bounding curve or line that
describes the stress states that will produce failure of a
consolidated and pre-sheared bulk material. All failure
stress states for a given consolidation stress are represented by Mohr stress circles and are tangent to this yield
locus. The specific Mohr stress circle, which is both
tangent to this yield locus and passes through the origin,
represents the unconfined yield stress state. The major
principal stress associated with this circle is the unconfined yield strength, fc, of the material. There is one yield
locus for each critical consolidation stress and one
unique value of unconfined yield strength for each major
principal critical consolidation stress, s1. The strength of
a bulk solid is used to determine the ability of the
material to form cohesive arches or ratholes. Bulk
strength is also used to correlate process behavior to
material properties.
Direct shear testers measure the bulk strength of
materials by first generating the yield locus and then
constructing the unconfined Mohr circle stress state from
the data. The basic procedure in all direct shear tests is
similar. While under a certain consolidation load, the
specimen inside the cell is pre-sheared to a condition of
continual deformation without volume change (critical
state). The confining load on the specimen is then
reduced, and the specimen is re-sheared to failure. This
produces a single point on the yield locus. Repeating this
procedure generates points along the yield locus and
allows computation of the unconfined yield strength.
There are several accepted direct shear testers available
today. Jenike, Peschl, Schulze, and Uniaxial testers are all
examples of direct shear testers [3 5]. The Jenike cell is
the oldest direct shear tester used to measure the
unconfined yield properties of powder and granular
materials [6, 7].
Most bulk solid mechanics practitioners assume that the
stress state in a given tester can be represented by some
effective (or average) stress state (see e.g. [8, 9]). In fact,
the calculations used to reduce the raw data inherently
assume this. In the Jenike test, for example, the shear
stress, t, and the normal stress, s, in a powder specimen
are assumed nearly equal to the boundary tractions.
These tractions are determined from the shearing force
acting on the ring S and the normal force acting on the lid,
N, as t S/A and s N/A. Here, A is the area of the
circular specimen. When the specimen is subjected to the
boundary forces S and N, the specimen is assumed to
have a uniform shear stress and normal stress everywhere or, at least, at the shear zone. Rademacher and
Haaker [10] introduced some corrections to the above t
and s by making a static equilibrium analysis of the
system. The corrections took the weight of the lid and the
specimen (above the assumed shear plane) as well as

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

friction at several contacts (the specimen-ring, the ringbase, the pin-ring exterior etc.) into account. The results
indicate that the experimentally obtained corrections are
typically small and that their theoretical corrections are
much greater than the experimental ones. Moreover,
their equilibrium analysis ignores the possible spatiotemporal variation of the stress field in the specimen. It is
also worth-mentioning that a Discrete Element Method
(DEM) analysis of the Jenike cell can explain some of the
Rademacher and HaakerJs corrections inherently.
Considering the granular nature of the material, wall
friction effects, and the operatorJs style of specimen
preparation, the stress homogeneity assumption becomes questionable. However, this assumption has not
been questioned thoroughly in the open literature. The
motivation behind our research is that the stress-strain
inhomogeneity may be the origin of the aforementioned
problems associated with the testers and that a fundamental understanding of the stress inhomogeneity may
enable us to improve these testers.
The goal of this paper is to provide evidence for the
existence of stress inhomogeneity in a powder specimen
tested in the Jenike shear cell via experiments and
discrete element simulations. Very recently, Thornton
and Zhang [11] performed discrete element simulations
of a direct shear tester and presented the average shear to
normal stress ratio. Their investigation disregarded the
possibility of stress inhomogeneity (gradient) in the
specimen. Similarly, the corrections introduced by Rademacher and Haaker [10] disregarded this possibility, as
mentioned previously. However, the stress inhomogeneity cannot be ruled out in a real direct shear tester,
which is the main concern of the present investigation.
Our experiments and discrete element simulations show
that the powder specimen actually develops a complex
inhomogeneous stress field, thus invalidating the commonly accepted stress homogeneity assumption.

2 Experimental
The Jenike cell consists of a shear ring, base, and a top
cover plate or lid (Figure 2). The ring and mold ring are
positioned above the base with the ring edge offset by the
thickness of the base cylinder. Material is placed in the
ring and base and a special twisting top applied. As the
total shear in the Jenike cell is limited, the standard
testing procedure [3] suggests pre-consolidating (compacting) the material within the cell by applying a weight
onto the top of the cell and rotating the twisting top to
produce a stress state in the test cell that is close to the
desired critical state. At this point, the mold ring and
twisting top are removed, and the shearing top and
consolidation weight are placed on the material in the

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Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

Fig. 2: Schematic of the Jenike cell showing the twisting (top)

and shearing (bottom) stages.

specimen. The material is then sheared to achieve a

constant shear force (steady-state). The consolidation
load placed on the specimen is then reduced, and the
specimen is sheared again to measure the maximum
shear force required to fail the specimen in the tester.
Repeating this procedure multiple times allows calculation of the yield locus.
The standard Jenike tester was modified by placing a
pressure-sensitive pad at the bottom of the test cell base.
This pad is commercially available from TekScan and is
capable of measuring over 2 000 independent normal
stress measurements at frequencies up to 8 scans per
second. It consists of rows and columns of piezo-resistive
material printed on two plastic sheets. The stress at each
row and column junction causes a deformation in the
piezo-resistive material changing the contact resistance
of the junction to produce a voltage response that is
linear with the applied stress. The voltage profile of each
contact point is then proportional to the normal stress
applied on the pad surface and can be calibrated to
produce readings in engineering units. Demetry et al.
[12] measured the pressure profile during a die fillingcompaction process and demonstrated the potential of
the TekScan measuring technique. However, to the best
knowledge of the authors, this technique has not been
applied to direct or indirect powder testers before.
It is important that the bottom surface of the cell be
rough to prevent sliding along the bottom. This is
accomplished in the standard Jenike cell by machining
a set of concentric groves in the base. Grates are placed at
the bottom of other direct shear cells for the same reason.
The magnitude of this roughness is not important
provided the base is sufficiently rough to prevent sliding.

The TekScan pad is made up of smooth plastic. Consequently, to create a rough surface, sand particles of
about 800 microns were glued to the surface of the pad.
The pad was calibrated with this sand coating and found
to produce accurate and repeatable load measurements
within 10% error. Besides repeatability of the sensor
output, other issues related to the measurement are the
drift, hysteresis, and non-linearity of the sensor output.
Within the time scale of the experiment, the drift was
observed to be small, while hysteresis was not tested. The
linearity of the output was assumed for the normal loads
considered in the Jenike test and checked intermittently
for loads that were not used in the calibration.
A moderately cohesive silica powder with a mean size of
about 50 mm was placed in the Jenike cell. The specimen
was consolidated with a normal load of 2.5 kPa and
subsequently pre-sheared to a steady-state condition
(constant shear force). After that, the normal load was
reduced to 1.3 kPa and the specimen was re-sheared to a
failure condition. The TekScan pad provides the vertical
normal stress, Tzz, during the consolidation, pre-shearing, and re-shearing to failure stages while a load cell
measured the boundary shear force during the preshearing and the re-shearing stages. It should be noted
that the spatiotemporal variation of the normal stress
was measured only for the part of the specimen that is
adjacent to the bottom section of the cell (a circular
domain). The discrete element method, which will be
presented in the next section, can provide the spatiotemporal variation of the stress field not only at the
bottom section, but also within the shear zone (practically anywhere in the specimen).

3 Computer Simulation of the Jenike Cell

The Discrete Element Method (DEM), which was
introduced by Cundall and Strack [13], has been widely
used to investigate the mechanical behavior of particle
assemblies. Due to the computational burden of a threedimensional simulation, the central slice of a specimen
with a width of one particle diameter was considered in
the Jenike cell simulation (similar to [11]). The commercial software PFC2D version 2.00 [14] was used to
simulate the consolidation and the pre-shearing of the
particle assembly. As shown in Figure 3, the actual
dimensions of the cell were considered; nonetheless, only
4 800 spherical particles (with 0.8 mm size instead of the
actual mean size of 50 mm) were used to fill the slice. The
random filling with 4 800 identical particles leads to a
loose structure. Considering that the simulations carried
out in this work took about two months on a Dell
Precision 530 Workstation with a Xeon processor, the
use of the actual particle size turned out to be prohib-

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Fig. 3: Schematic of the slice model geometry considered in the

DEM simulations.

itively expensive. In view of the above facts, we expect

that the DEM simulations can capture some qualitative
aspects of the contact forces and the stress field, whereas
they might not provide quantitative details.

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

an averaging circle in 2-D case is an important issue in

DEM simulations, which is still open to debate. The
representative element should be large enough to
contain a sufficient number of particles (or particle
contacts) for accurate statistics, yet small enough to
reveal the spatial variation of macroscopic variables.
Masson and Martinez [19] suggest that for geometrical
variables such as porosity and coordination number, an
RVE size equal to 7 8 times the size of the largest
particle is sufficient to obtain a macroscopically representative value. For the stress tensor, this number can be
even higher. On the other hand, one may even average
the stress tensor inside the whole cell, as in [11], which
filters out all stress variations that are the major concern
of this paper. The size of the averaging circle was chosen
to be 10 times the particle size.

3.3 Implementation Issues

3.1 Governing Equations
In the traditional DEM analysis, the translational and
rotational motion of each particle in a particle assembly
is tracked by solving NewtonJs law of motion (ordinary
differential equations in time). Rigid particles interact
with each other at the contact points, and a linear
contact-stiffness model represented these interactions.
The CoulombJs friction model was active for the
tangential interaction at the contacts. Local non-viscous
damping is used in PFC2D to effectively damp the
equations of motion and to provide a numerical dissipation mechanism. A damping force and an out-of-plane
component of a damping moment, which are a fraction
(damping coefficient) of the unbalanced force and
moment, are incorporated into the equations of motion.
The damping is similar to that in [15] and mimics
hysteretic damping because the energy loss per loadingunloading cycle is independent of the rate at which the
cycle is executed. Details of the governing equations and
the numerical method can be found in [14, 16, 17].

3.2 Numerical Method and Spatial Averaging

The system of ordinary differential equations in time was
solved using a centered, second-order accurate, finite
difference scheme. This numerical scheme possesses
conditional stability; the critical time step was determined from a generalized multiple mass-spring system
[14, 18]. At selected times, a spatial averaging technique
was employed to obtain averaged values of the stress
components Tij inside an averaging circle. The selection
of the size of a representative volume element (RVE) or

A central slice of a powder specimen was considered

inside the Jenike cell (see Figure 3). Hence, 4 800
cohesionless spheres with 0.8 mm diameter were randomly located inside the slice with a width of one particle
diameter. The density, the normal stiffness and tangential stiffness (taken equal), and the friction coefficient of
the particles were 2 200 kg/m3, 2  105 N/m, and 0.49,
respectively. The wall-particle friction coefficient and
the wall stiffness were taken as 0.36 and 2  105 N/m,
respectively. The ring-base offset was 3.0 mm.
In the consolidation stage, the rigid top lid was simulated
by a raft of 118 bonded spheres (diameter: 0.8 mm,
density: 2 700 kg/m3, and stiffness: 2  105 N/m). The
normal and shear bonding strengths were 1010 N. A
consolidation load of 2.5 kPa was equally distributed
over the raft of spheres. The parallel bond stiffness [14]
was set at 1011 N/m. Thus, the raft acted as an idealized
semi-rigid wall. In the second step, the specimen was
sheared to a steady-state by the moving ring with a
velocity of 5  105 m/s. The time step was 5  107 s,
and the averaging circle diameter was chosen to be
8.0 mm.
The damping coefficient was set at 0.7 (suggested in [14])
and 0.1 for the static consolidation and the quasi-static
shearing stages, respectively. A higher damping coefficient allows a particle assembly to reach an equilibrium
state (as in consolidation) faster. However, its value
should be decreased to a small non-zero value to simulate
the quasi-static regime while still suppressing sustained
particle oscillations. Instead of using this artificial damping, one can incorporate the energy dissipation mechanism via particle-level deformation tests (see e.g. [20]). It
is inherently assumed that the elastic contact deformation of the particles along with frictional dissipation are

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

the main processes during the quasi-static deformation

of particles under relatively small stresses considered
here; thus, the dissipative mechanisms such as the plastic
contact deformation are not explicitly taken into account.

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Spatiotemporal Variation of the Normal Stress
The vertical normal stress Tzz at the bottom section of the
cell (a circular domain) was measured via the TekScan
pad as the specimen was being pre-sheared from the
consolidated state (t 0 s, after the twisting procedure)
to a steady-state. Figure 4(a) presents the Tzz profiles at
various shearing times (or displacements) while Figure 4(b) depicts the temporal evolution of the boundary
shear force S that was measured by the load cell of the
Jenike tester. The normal stress exhibits significant
spatiotemporal variations, as seen from Figure 4(a).
The spatial fluctuations manifest themselves in the
form of islands. These findings invalidated the stress

Fig. 4: Pre-shearing of the silica powder. (a) Spatiotemporal

variation of the vertical normal stress Tzz at the bottom of the cell
as measured by the TekScan pad, (b) the temporal development of
the boundary shear force as measured by the load cell.

297
homogeneity assumption experimentally, at least, for the
bottom section of the specimen. The boundary shear
force increases with the shearing time and attains a
constant value (steady-state) at about 60 s (Figure 4(b)),
whereas the normal stress still exhibits some time-wise
variations.
Initially (t 0 s), the normal stress appears to be somewhat symmetric about the centerline of the test cell. The
normal stress generally decreases non-monotonically
from the central region toward the edges (walls) of the
cell, where the wall friction has a dominant effect. During
pre-shear, a skewed stress profile developed with the
highest stress towards the leading edge of the cell. The
shearing renders the normal load to be redistributed;
consequently, a concentration of the normal stress
toward the leading edge occurs.
The vertical normal stress Tzz shown in Figure 4(a) was
averaged to simplify the presentation of the data and to
compare the experimental findings with the slice model
in the DEM simulations. For this purpose, a rectangular
domain shown in the inset of Figure 5 was considered,
and Tzz was averaged transverse to the direction of
shearing. The width of the domain was chosen to be one
quarter of the test cell diameter (23.8 mm) and a length
equal to the tester diameter (95.3 mm). The long axis of
this averaging domain was aligned with the shearing
direction and was assumed equivalent to the x-axis in the
slice model (see Figure 3). By computing the average
value of the nine Tzz measurements along the short axis
of the domain, the transverse averaging was carried out.
This procedure produced 37 averaged Tzz values across
the tester centerline in the direction of shear (x-axis).

Fig. 5: Spatiotemporal variation of the vertical normal stress Tzz

at the bottom of the cell as measured by the TekScan pad. The
normal stress presented in Figure 4(a) was transversely averaged
inside the rectangular domain (see the inset).

298
Similar to Figure 4(a), Figure 5 illustrates the inhomogeneous nature of the vertical normal stress Tzz that was
transversely averaged in the rectangular domain, as
mentioned above. Upon shearing, the normal load is
transferred from the shearing edge toward the leading
edge, which is clearly marked in the averaging domain.
The normal stress decreases from the mid-section of the
cell toward the cell walls; however, the decrease is not
monotonic. Figure 5 clearly reveals the presence of
strong spatial fluctuations although the averaging domain was chosen to be relatively large (95.3 mm 
23.8 mm). Therefore, the normal stress redistribution
upon shearing and the presence of stress fluctuations are
some qualitative features that should be predicted by the
DEM. The stress inhomogeneity depicted in Figures 4(a)
and 5 could originate from the wall friction and roughness, initial asymmetry of the ring with respect to the
base, asymmetric normal loading on the top lid, and the
discrete or discontinuous nature of the powder specimen.
The mean value of the normal stress Tzz, i.e., the
x-averaged normal stress was determined from the
profiles in Figure 5. The mean values are 1.93, 1.55, and
1.92 kPa for shearing times of 0, 25, and 50 s, respectively,
which are smaller than the boundary traction applied to
the lid (2.50 kPa). This can be partly explained by the
walls taking part of the normal load through friction but
mainly attributed to the transverse averaging in the
rectangular domain as well as the measurement errors
(see Section 2). Repeat measurements were made for the
steady state and failure at the given consolidation stress
and failure stress. All of the repeats showed similar
skewed Tzz patterns in which the loads concentrate
toward the leading edge of the cell. The maximum
difference between identical steady states was about
15% and occurred with steady states that were obtained
from the normally consolidated specimen and the overconsolidated specimen.
The TekScan pad also measured the vertical normal
stress Tzz at the failure of the specimen after the
reduction of the normal load from 2.5 kPa (at the
steady-state) to 1.3 kPa. The whole stress profile at the
bottom of the cell (a circular domain) is illustrated in
Figure 6(a), while Figure 6(b) shows the x-variation of
the transversely averaged normal stress. The normal
stress decreased across the cell when the normal load was
decreased from 2.5 kPa to 1.3 kPa at the failure. It is clear
that the stress inhomogeneity persists during the failure
stage of the Jenike test.
The measurements in the tester are confined to only the
normal stress at the bottom of the cell. Without measuring additional shear and normal stresses, there is no way
of experimentally confirming the stress state acting in the
material. There are three possible reasons for variations
in the measured normal stress. One possibility is that the

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

Fig. 6: Spatial variation of the vertical normal stress Tzz at the

bottom of the cell for the steady-state and the failure state.
(a) The TekScan measurement of the normal stress in the whole
circular domain, (b) the transversely averaged normal stress in the
rectangular domain (see the inset).

magnitude of the major principal stress is constant and

the variation in normal stress arises from the principal
stress direction being a function of position in the cell. If
this were the case, the normal stress values could vary
between the magnitude of the major principal stress and
the magnitude of the minor principal stress. Another
alternative is that the magnitude of the major principal
stress changes across the cell. The probability is that both
the direction and magnitude of the major principal stress
are changing.
A limit analysis of critical state conditions will help us to
determine the variations in normal stresses. Plastic yield
conditions arise when a stress state exceeds that prescribed by the effective yield locus. This can produce
continual deformation (i.e. flow) or result in compaction
as the stress state increases in compliance to the effective
yield locus. In any event, the smallest ratio of the minor
principal stress, s3, to the major principal stress, s1, is
given by
s 3 1  sin d
s  s3
or 1

sin d;
s 1 1 sin d
s1 s3

Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

where d is the effective angle of internal friction. All

other stress states will produce a principal stress ratio
larger than that given in Eq. (1). Let us assume for a
moment that the highest measured normal stress in the
test cell corresponds to the major principal stress.
Assume also that the major principal stress direction
shifts 90 8 as material nears the edge of the cell. If the
major and minor principal stresses are constant across
the cell, then measured normal stresses must be larger
than the ones given by the relation (1).
The effective angle of internal friction, d, for silica
powder is about 43 8, implying that the lowest value of the
normal stress must be greater than 0.19 times the
measured peak stress. The actual normal stresses near
the shearing edge of the cell were less than 0.1 times the
value of the measured largest normal peak stress. This
low stress can only be explained by a variation of the
principal stress across the cell, implying that both the
magnitude and direction of the principal stress are
functions of position within the cell. This experimental
evidence suggests that the Jenike test cell and test
method do not produce uniform stress, at least along the
bottom surface of the cell during operation.
Figures 4 6 have demonstrated the skewness and inhomogeneity of the vertical normal stress at the bottom
of the cell during the consolidation, pre-shearing, and
failure stages of the Jenike shear test. The non-uniform
stress profile suggests that failure may be taking place in
different parts of the test cell during the course of the test
making the average load condition a combination of
failed and non-failure states. On the other hand, one
might assert that the real region of interest is the stress
state in the shear zone, which might occur near the midsection of the cell. The question arises as to the
uniformity of the major principal stress in the shear
region. It is expected that the DEM simulations will shed
significant light on this issue.

4.2 DEM Predictions: Spatiotemporal Variation

of the Stress Field
The particles interact with each other and contact forces
develop during the consolidation and the pre-shearing
stages of the Jenike test. Figure 7 presents the contact
force profile in the specimen at various shearing times, t.
Initially (t 0 s), the specimen is consolidated under a
normal load of 2.5 kPa. In Figure 7, thickness of a line at a
particle-particle contact point scales with the magnitude
of the contact force. All forces are scaled relative to a
constant force of 20 mN for an easy visual comparison.
The existence of force chains along which the majority of
the load is transmitted is evident. Upon shearing, the
force chains align themselves preferentially along the

299

Fig. 7: DEM prediction of the spatial variation of the particle

contact forces at several shearing times.

major principal stress direction. Along the bottom part of

the cell, the contact forces shift from the shearing edge
toward the leading edge, thus leading to more intense
force chains near the leading edge. This DEM prediction
accords well with the experimental observation that the
normal stress profile becomes increasingly skewed
toward the leading edge with shearing (as seen in
Figures 4(a) and 5). We find that the DEM simulation
has a qualitative prediction capability.
The vertical normal stress Tzz is obtained from the
simulations by spatially averaging the contact forces
inside circles (see Section 3.2.). The variation of Tzz along
the x-axis at two different averaging heights: zav 4 and
16 mm is shown in Figure 8. The zav 4 mm height
considers the particles adjacent to the bottom wall,
where the experimental data with the TekScan pad were
collected. The zav 16 mm height is close to the midsection of the specimen, where the supposed shear zone
can develop during the shearing stage. For this averaging
height, there are no experimental stress data available;

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Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

appear at both zav 4 and 16 mm. Moreover, the spatial

fluctuations do not disappear upon shearing. It is
inferred from the DEM simulations that the stress
inhomogeneity can exist both at the bottom section,
where the TekScan measurements were taken, and at the
mid-section or the shear zone of the powder specimen.
The DEM simulations indicate that all of the stress
components (not only the normal stress Tzz) do exhibit a
spatial variation both at the bottom section of the cell and
at the mid-section of the cell, where the shear zone can
form. This finding also corroborates the spatial variation
of the principal stresses and their directions. The mean
value of the normal stress Tzz, i.e., the x-averaged normal
stress, at zav 16 mm (the mid-section) was calculated to
be 2.50, 2.63, and 2.61 kPa for shearing times of 0, 40, and
60 s, respectively, which are very close to the boundary
traction applied to the raft: 2.50 kPa (refer to Figure 3).
Although the mean normal stress at the mid-section of
the cell, where the most shearing takes place, is very close
to the normal boundary traction, the normal stress Tzz
exhibits strong fluctuations, as seen in Figure 8.
The variation of the mean (x-averaged) shear stress Txz
(at zav 16 mm) with the shearing time is illustrated in
Figure 9(a). A quick comparison between Figures 4(b)

Fig. 8: DEM prediction of the x-variation of the vertical normal

stress Tzz at various shearing times. The spatial averaging was
performed inside circles whose centers were located at two
heights: zav 4 mm and zav 16 mm.

we get insight into the stress inhomogeneity via the DEM

simulation.
Figure 8 illustrates that the vertical normal stress in a
loosely consolidated powder specimen exhibits spatial
fluctuations owing to the presence of force chains, whose
existence was noted in the simulated contact force
pattern. The stress pattern predicted by the DEM for
zav 4 mm is compared with that obtained from the
experiment (see Figure 5). It is noted that the DEM
captures some qualitative features of the spatial variation of the normal stress at the bottom of the cell. The
normal load is transferred from the shearing edge
(x 0 mm) toward the leading edge (x 95.3 mm)
upon shearing, thus resulting in an increase in the stress
intensity toward the leading edge. The DEM simulations
also show that the normal stress decreases towards the
walls (though not monotonically) and that several local
stress extrema exist due to the spatial fluctuations that
are similar to those in Figure 5. The stress fluctuations

Fig. 9: DEM prediction of (a) the temporal evolution of the

mean shear stress Txz and (b) the x-variation of both the major
principal stress s1 and the principal stress ratio at an averaging
height of zav 16 mm.

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Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 21 (2004) 293 302

and 9(a) reveals that the mean shear stress evolves to a

steady-state (critical state) within a similar time-scale to
that for the experimentally measured boundary shearing
force. Figure 9(b) demonstrates that both the major
principal stress and the principal stress ratio have
significant spatial variations at zav 16 mm. According
to Eq. (1), the principal stress ratio should reach a
constant value at the critical or steady-state, which yields
the effective angle of internal friction. It is important to
note that the shear stress reaches a plateau at 60 s,
whereas the principal stress ratio at 60 s is far from being
a constant. This means that some changes in bulk density
may have taken place locally and that the critical state is
not reached locally. We thus establish that the boundary
shear force (or traction) and the boundary normal
traction may not be representative (from a rheological
point of view) of the local phenomena or events taking
place in the specimen. A sensitivity analysis regarding
the effects of various parameters (particle properties,
geometry, and wall properties) has not been performed.
Thus, it should be mentioned that the spatiotemporal
fluctuations presented here might be less or more severe
under different experimental conditions.
The material properties predicted in view of the
boundary tractions alone might be erroneous. By introducing some corrections to the boundary tractions,
Rademacher and Haaker [10] aimed at finding the
correct normal and shear stresses acting on the supposed
shear plane. Due to the spatiotemporal variation of the
stress field and consequent structural variations in the
specimen, it is expected that a shear zone rather than a
shear plane can form. Some regions of the specimen may
undergo elastic deformation, whereas yielding occurs in
some other regions. This type of material behavior may
not be explained based on uniform stresses, whether
these are taken equal either to the boundary tractions or
to the corrected tractions in view of [10] or to the mean
values of the stress profiles presented in this paper. The
factors that influence the stress inhomogeneity are also
expected to influence the accuracy of the extracted
parameters. They are the wall friction, the depth of the
specimen, finite ratio of the particle size to the tester
dimensions, and initial non-uniform structure (e.g.
spatially varying porosity) of the particle assembly
because of the improper specimen preparation.

5 Conclusions
The Jenike shear cell is an established powder tester,
which is widely and successfully used in process design,
particularly in the design of storage bins. As new
techniques are developed, it is possible to understand
and resolve some of the problems that have arisen in the

past. In particular, it is still necessary to use a standardized procedure with this tester [3], and the clear
identification of a unique steady state shear has always
been elusive. The measurements and simulations of the
complex stress patterns, which may arise, imply that the
achievement of steady state is dependent not only upon
the dilation of the powder but also upon the development
of the stress profile in the direction of the shear.
The measurements and simulations presented here can
be used to explain why different pre-shear preparation
techniques lead to varying results even though the same
apparent steady state is achieved during shear. The
results of this study also emphasize the need for
development of shear cells in which the strain of the
powder is more closely controlled. When used for
process design, the average values of stress that are
recorded by the Jenike cell, as well as other direct shear
testers, reflect the average value for a sample of the size
of the cell. If this size is small compared to the equipment
to be designed, then those average values represent a
conservative value that can be used in the design.
A more detailed measurement of the stress-strain
behavior of the powder is necessary when the objective
is product design. In this case, it is the size of the particles
relative to the cell, which is critical, and wide variations
of stress within the cell make the average values
insensitive to variations in the powders tested. We
postulate with fine cohesive powders that the large
variation in stress leads to a similar variation in strain.
Macroscopically, this may exhibit itself as stick-slip
behavior.

6 Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial
support of the Particle Engineering Research Center
(PERC) at the University of Florida, the National
Science Foundation (NSF) grant #EEC-94-0289, and
the Industrial Partners of the PERC. The thanks are
extended to the referees whose comments and suggestions helped us to enhance the quality of the paper. The
first author (E. B.) is especially grateful to the referee,
who pointed out the paper by F. J. C. Rademacher and G.
Haaker.

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