Abstract
The mechanical behaviour of granular materials depends on the properties of the grains and on the arrangement of the grain assembly. Using a methodology for connecting the discontinuous medium and the supposedly continuous medium, the authors present at first a set of correlations and standard behaviours for granular media made of elastic grains without “glue”, inside this scheme it is then possible to enlight the influence of grain breakage during loading. It appears that the most significant parameter, for a given mineralogy of the grains, is the grain size distribution. Its effects are particularly noticeable on the volume change amplitudes during isotropic and deviatoric loadings.

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