ELSEVIER

Powder Technology 93 ( ! 997 ) ! 3-2 !

The two mechanisms of particle impact breakage and the velocity effect
Alexander V. Potapov *, Charles S. Campbell
Department of Mechanical Engbleering, Universio"of Southern Califonzia, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1453, USA
Received 15 May 1996: revised 6 March 1997; accepted i0 March 1997

Abstract
This paper describes a two-dimensional computer simulation study of the impact induced breakage of brittle solid particles. The work
started as an attempt to understand the effect of impact velocity on the induced breakage and in particular to explain why there is a shift in
the slope of the size distribution at large impact velocities. The results indicate that the observed breakage pattern is the result of two breakage
mechanisms. When an unbroken particle experiences an impact, tensile stresses are generated along any line projecting radially outward from
the contact point. This will generate cracks along those lines which we refer to as Mechanism I breakage and will be the dominant mode of
breakage while the particle' s center of mass is still approaching the plate. However, before breakage is complete, cracks will form perpendicular
to the Mechanism I cracks. This we refer to as Mechanism II breakage. As no tensile stresses in directions perpendicular to Mechanism I
cracks would appear in an unbroken particle, the stresses that lead to Mechanism II breakage must only appear as a result of Mechanism I
breakage. The simulations show that the Mechanism II breakage appears to be a result of the buckling of the fragments remaining after the
Mechanism ! breakage. Finally, the velocity effect appears to be a result of the tradeoff between these two modes of breakage. For high
velocity impacts the Meehani~,n I stresses are large and thus Mechanism I breakage is dominant. At smaller velocities Mechanism II plays a
larger role in the overall breakage.
Keywords: Breakage: Fragmentation: Impact

1. Introduction
This work grew out of an interest in the effect of !mpact
velocity on the breakage of brittle solid particles. The first
velocity study was performed in 1956 by Charles [I I. He
studied the breakage of brittle cylinders and compared the
results of breakage induced slowly by a falling weight with
that induced rapidly by the impact of a bullet; by changing
the mass of the 'hammer' he was able to transmit comparable
impact energy at both large and small velocities.
The first observation by Charles [ I ] was an alteration in
the slope of the size distribution. For the low velocity falling
weight, the slope was approximately I. !, while for the high
velocity bullet, the slope rose to about 1.4. He also found that
the high velocity bullet required less energy to initiate breakage than the falling weight. However, provided that the
kinetic energy was large enough to induce fragmentation, it
was possible to achieve smaller fragments for the dropped
weight than for the comparable bullet impact. Finally, Charles
made the observation that the fragments resulting from the
high velocity bullet were more elongated than those that
resulted from the dropped weight.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: + 213 740 0488: fax: + 213 740 8071.
0032-5910/97/$17.00 1997 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved
Pll S 0 0 3 2 - 5 9 1 0 ( 97 ) 03 242-7

Charles argued that the high velocity bullet impact resulted

in strong elastic waves within the target. The waves concentrated stresses and resulted in the altered breakage behavior,
However, this argument would only account for the ability
to induce breakage at low energy and could not explain any
of his other observations. Furthermore, this explanation
seems unlikely since the largest impact velocity Charles used
was about 1% of the speed of sound in the test material. That
would seem to indicate nearly quasistatic loading and it is
doubtful that strong waves could be formed. (One can not be
certain about this as it is the speed at which the impulse is
applied and not the speed of impact that determines whether
a strong elastic wave forms and that will depend on the shape
and material properties of the hammer as well as the velocity.
Unfortunately, Charles does not give enough information to
form any other judgement on this point, but, if the bullet had
the rounded nose characteristic of most bullets, it is almost
certain that the force was applied relatively slowly.)
The work described herein started as an attempt to understand the velocity effect using our two-dimensional computer
simulation technique described in Refs. [ 2,3]. It was shown
by Potapov and Campbell [4] that such a simulation could
replicate Charles' observations including the change in slope,
required breakage energy and the elongation of the fragments,

A.V. Potapov, C.S. Campbell/PowderTec~ology 9J (1997) 13-21

14

despite the fact that the two studies involved different particle
shapes. (Charles broke cylinders while Potapov and Campbell studied two-dimensional discs.) That coincidence indicates the universal nature of the velocity effect. The purpose
of this paper is to understand the velocity effect in the context
of the round particle simulations in Ref. [4]. The great advancon.~ters.
Furthermore, it p e ~ t s ' t h e breakage process to be carefully
observed as it pn)gresses, which is very difficult to replicate
experimentally as the actual process occurs very rapidly.
A dimensional analysis presented in Ref. [4] shows that
the impact of round particles is governed by the dimensionless parameters

E~i~
E~,

go
C'

where Et,in is the kinetic energy of the impact, Ecvis the energy
required to propagate a crack across a particle, Vois the impact
velocity, C is the sound speed and v is Poisson's ratio. As
pointed out in [4], the ratio of the impact velocity, Vo, to the
speed of sound, C, can be interpreted as a characteristic particle deformation. The argument went like this: assume that
the kinetic energy of the impact is transformed into a strain,
e, distributed over a two-dimensional body of area A. Then
pA V o ~ e ~ A

Rearranging yields

Vo
(E/p) i/z

which, but for some function of Poisson's ratio v, is essentially Vo/C. Consequently, the larger the impact velocity, the
greater the deformation of the particle and the larger the
tensile stresses that would be induced. But those larger tensile
stresses would be a function only of the particle deformation
and would appear even if the deformation were the result of
quasistatic loading. Consequently, it appears that the larger
particle deformation and the correspondingly larger tensile
stresses have something to do with the change observed by
Charles [ I ]. Recent experimental studies of impact breakage
have been performed by Papadopoulos and Ghadiri [5] and
by Guigon et al. [ 6].

2. Description of the model

The model used for this simulation is exactly that described
in detail in Ref. [2] and used in Refs. [3,4]. All of these
simulations will consist of a single round particle impacting
on a rigid plate as is shown in Fig. 1. Here we shall just briefly
outline the principles of this computer model.
The particle to be broken is created by 'gluing' together
convex polygonal elements. In all the simulations presented
here, Delaunay triangles are used for the element shapes. The

Fig. i. The divisionof a roundpanicleinto2043 Delaunaytriangles.

elements themselves are assumed to be rigid and the compliance of the body is due solely to the compliance of the glued
joints. The 'glue' that connects the elements acts as a collection of elastic fibers; each such 'fiber' has stiffness K, in the
direction normal to the contacting side and Kt in the direction
tangential to the contacting side. To stabilize the numerical
technique, a small viscous force also acts on each fiber, whose
magnitude is proportional to the rate of fiber deformation
with coefficient u. This coefficient is chosen large enough
to ensure stability of the calculations but small enough not to
cause any major contribution to the energy loss.
Edges of the elements which are free from glued contacts
can experience 'collisional' contacts with the edges of other
elements that have become unglued or with the rigid plate.
Unlike glued contacts, collisional contacts cannot withstand
tensile forces. As the elements are rigid, the edges will overlap
slightly when exposed to compressive forces. The elastic
restoring force in this contact is proportional to the area of
the particle's overlap with the coefficient K,. That force is
applied at the center of gravity of the o,lerlapping area andis
normal to a 'contact plane'. The definition of the contact plane
is discussed in detail in Ref. [2]. In addition to the elastic
restoring force, a small viscous force also acts in the same
direction, whose magnitude is proportional to the rate of
change of the overlapping area. The other force acting on
collisional contacts is a frictional one; it acts parallel to the
contact plane and is also applied at the center of gravity of
the overlapping area. Initially, there is no slip between the
contacting element surfaces and a force is generated which
is proportional to the total relative displacement parallel to
the contact plane that has occurred since the contact was
initiated with coefficient of proportionality KtLp (where Lp is
the mean length of the element sides). However, if the magnitude of this force exceeds/tlFn I, where/.t is the coefficient
of friction and F, is the normal force on the contact, the
element surfaces are allowed to slip and the magnitude of the
tangential force is set to/z IF, l, with preservation of direction.

A.V. Potapm', C.S. Campbefl/ Powder Technology 93 fi997) 13-21

Using the procedure described above, the forces acting on

all elements are calculated at each time step and are numerically integrated using a second-order midpoint integration
technique to yield the motion of all of the individual elements
and thus of the macroscopic body as a whole.
Fracture in this model may be thought of as a transition
from glued to collisional contacts. A glued contact can only
withstand a normal tensile stress ap to a specified limit O'.cn.~.
If the normal tensile stress on the contact exceeds this limit,
the glue breaks; that is, from that point forward, only the
portion of the joint for which the tensile strength is exceeded
may participate in collisional contacts. This process creates
a material with a work of fracture equal to tr,),.J (2Kn). This
is similar to the agglomerate breakage studies of Thornton
and Kaifu [ 7,8 ], in which agglomerates are built out of discs
and spheres glued together at the point of contact. But here,
like in a homogeneous solid, the joints break continuously,
while in the agglomerate model the joints break in a staccato
fashion.
Similar to the simulations described in Ref. [4], we shall
use a particle subdivided into 2043 Delaunay triangles; this
tessellation is shown in Fig. I. We will only consider normal
collisions of circular particles with rigid plates and can reasonably assume that the results are relatively independent of
the surface friction coefficient/z;/t = 0.6 shall be used for all
these simulations. As shown in Ref. [2], the value of ~, will
be different depending on whether the two-dimensional
stresses are assumed to be plane-stress, plane-strain or something in between (although that assumption does not in any
way affect the method or the progress of the simulation).
Here, we shall regard all cases to be plane-stress and present
the corresponding value of ~, in all following descriptions.
This paper will describe the results of simulations for a
wide range of Vo/C, while E~,~,,/E~,. is held lixed. This is
accomplished by changing the impact velocity to vary Vc~/C
and proportionately raising the I'racture energy so that
Ek~,,/E~, does not change. This would be impossible to do
experimentally as changing E~,, or any other variation of the
available parameters that would lead to the same goal,
requires changing material properties in a controlled manner.
This illustrates the great advantage of using computer simulation techniques for this type of investigation.

3. Patterns of circular particle breakage.

Computational results
Initially all these simulations are begun with the macroscopic particle having just made contact with the plate: at that
time, the center of mass is still moving towards the plate but
the particle is undeformed and there is no force between the
particle and plate. As the particle proceeds toward the plate
it begins to deform, a contact force accumulates and the
velocity of the center of mass decreases. As was observed in
Ref. [4], the particle responds to the contact tbrce by developing cracks that grow radially outward from the point of

15

m~

FiE 2. Fan-like cracks propagating from the point of contact between the
particle and a rigid disc. This simulation is defined by the parameters
V./C=0.0049. ip=0.2, and Ekm/E,, = i.84X l03. The crack structure is
pictured at the moment when the particle's center of mass has been brough!
to rest and the particle is at maximum tension. The crack structure is thus
solely a result of Mechanism I breakage.

contact, creating a fan-like pattern. This fan-like pattern may

be clearly seen in the example shown in Fig. 2 which is from
a simulation described by the parameters Vo/C=0.0049,
v = 0.2, and Eki./E~r = 1.84 l03. This snapshot was taken
at precisely the moment that the center of mass has stopped
moving towards the plate and just before it had began to
rebound. At that moment, the particle is not in static equilibrium and is experiencing a huge compressive force at the
contact point. The fan-like pattern shall be referred to as the
results of Mechanism ! breakage (or simply as Mechanism !
cracks). These cracks will still grow somewhat during
rebound, but other cracks also develop which are oriented
roughly perpendicular to the fan-like structure. Such cracks
are apparent in the final picture from the simulation shown
in Fig. 3. We will refer to these as Mechanism ll cracks. (As
the fan-like Mechanism I cracks grow radially outward from
the point of contact, we will refer to the Mechanism il cracks
as 'azimuthal'.) Note that the azimuthal cracks are concentrated near the point of contact, in fact, due to their growth,
a roughly triangular region surrounding the point of contact
has been broken down to single elements ( which is of course
the largest degree of breakage that is possible with this
simulation technique).
Note that the same pattern of breakage is apparent along
longitudinal cuts through the impact broken spheres studied
by Arbiter et al. [9]. However, the fan-like cracks seen there
must be a secondary effect in three dimensions as the direct
analog to the Mechanism ! stresses must first cause breakage
along longitudinal planes: that process divides the sphere up
into pieces much like the segments of an orange (which are

A V. Potapm; C.S. Campbell/Powder Technology 93 f 1997) 13-21

16

Fig. 3. The same simulation as in Fig. 2 but shown when the particle is
rebounding and breakage is complete. The initial fan-like cracks are now
interconnected by 'azimuthal' cracks generated by Mechanism Ii breakage.

i
Fig. 4. The principal tensile stresses generated in an unbreakable panicle
while impacting a rigid unbreakable plate. These tensile stresses are oriented
in the azimuthal direction and are thus the cause of the fan-like crack
formation.

called 'lunes' by Gilvary and Bergstrom [ 10 ~,) before fanlike breakage is geometrically possible. Arbiter et al. [91 also
noticed that a conical region surrounding the contact point
was pulvefizeddown to finesjust as observedin the triangular
region seen here that resulted from Mechanism II breakage.
Mechanism I breakage may be understood by examining
the tensile stress patterns that develop inside the particle.
Fig. 4 illustrates the principal stresses that develop within an
unbroken particle during impact with the plate. The length

and orientation of the lines drawn on the figure indicate the

magnitude and orientation of the principal tensile stress. This
figure is from a numerical simulation defined by the parameters Vo/C=0,0049 and u - 0 . 2 and a tensile strength set
so high that no breakage occurs. One can see from this figure
that the principal tensile stresses are oriented in the azimuthal
direction and thus generate the radial fan-like cracks. The
maximuin values of these stresses are achieved when the
particle is at maximum compression, i.e. just before rebound
when the approach of the center of mass towards the plate
has halted. This is exactly the situation at which the snapshot
in Fig. 2 was taken so that snapshot is indicative of the pattern
of breakage that is induced by such stresses.
This gives a partial clue to the effect of Vo/C. As mentioned
in Section I, it is possible to interpret Vo/Cas a characteristic
strain of the particle. Consequently, the larger Vo/C,thelarger
the strain, the larger the force on the contact point and the
larger the Mechanism I stresses. One would then expect
to find a large Vo/C accompanied by a greater degree of
Mechanism I breakage. The effect of Vo/C on the fan-like
crack development can be seen in Fig. 5 which shows the
extent of the crack development for two values of Vo/C
(Vo/C-0.0098 and Vo/C= 0.0005) at the moment the particle's center of mass has halted its motion towards the plate,
i.e. the moment when the Mechanism I tensile stresses will
have their maximum values. The greater extent of breakage
for the larger VolC is clearly evident. The snapchot at the end
of breakage and the corresponding cumulative size distributions are shown in Fig. 6. Notice that the change in VolC is
accompanied by the shift in the slope of the cumulative size
distribution from about I. I to about 1.4, just as observed by
Charles [ I ]. Fig. 7 shows the total length of crack generated
by an impact as a function of Vo/Cfor two different values of
E~i,/Ew It can be clearly seen there that the total crack length
is nearly independent of Vo/C. Hence, whatever amount of
the breakage energy that is not consumed in Mechanism I
breakage will be consumed by Mechanism If. Consequently,
increasing VolC increases the degree of Mechanism I breakage at the expense of Mechanism II breakage. The tradeoff
between the two breakage modes is further illustrated in
Fig. 8 which shows the time history of the total internal crack
length plotted along with the velocity of the particle's center
of mass, for both large and small VolC. The vertical dashed
line in these figures shows the point when the force at the
contact point has brought the center of mass velocity to a halt,
i.e. the point of maximum compression when the contact
force is a maximum. Notice that for large VolC, the majority
(more than 50%) of the breakage occurs as the particle is
moving towards the plate (while the center of mass velocity
is negative), while the opposite is true for small VolC. As
nearly all the breakage that occurs while the particle
approaches the plate is due to Mechanism I, this indicates
that Mechanism I breakage is the dominant mechanism at
large VolC in the sense that most of the crack length is
generated by Mechanism I.

A. V. Potapov, C.S. Campbell/Powder Technology 93 (1997) 13-21

!7

(b)

(o)
t

Fig. 5. The cracks generated by particle impact at two different values of Vo/C while all the other parameters of the problem are held fixed at ~,=0.2 and
Eki,/E~,=0.92 10"~:(a) Vo/C=O.O005, (b) Vo/C=0.0098. Both snapshots are taken at that moment of time between the approach and rebound of the particle when the center of mass is at a halt and the Mechanism I tensile stresses are at a maximum. One can see that the total length of the cracks for large Vo/C
(case (b)) is much higher than for small VolC (case (a)).

(o)

(b)

@
.

#"

vo/c.o.ooos

- Vo/C -

0,0098

i"a

0.I

0.2

0.5

LILo

Fig. 6. The final breakage patterns for the two simulations shown in Fig. 5
after the complete cessation of breakage: (a) VolC=O.O005, (b) VolC
--0.0098. (c) The corresponding cumulative size distributions. Note that
there is little noticeable difference in the total lengths of cracks visible in
(a) and (b).

But the stresses evident in Fig. 4 are the only stresses that
would be generated in an unbroken particle and can only
account for the fan-like Mechanism I breakage. Conse-

quently, the Mechanism II breakage must result from stresses

that appear because the particle is already broken into the
fan-like fragments. That also explains (i) why only Mechanism II cracks only appear in the later stages of breakage
when the Mechanism I cracks have had time to develop and
(ii) why the Mechanism II cracks in Fig. 3 are seldom
observed to cross the fan-like Mechanism I cracks (which
implies that the Mechanism I cracks had developed before
the Mechanism II cracks began to grow). The power of using
a simulation is that it allows the operators to manipulate
reality in such a way as to make apparent the stresses that
bring about the Mechanism II breakage. Given that the Mechanism II breakage must be a result of the Mechanism I breakage, we ran a special simulation for the same conditions as
Fig. 2 in which we allowed the cracks to develop naturally
until the force at the contact point had brought the center of
mass of the particle to a halt. At that moment, the compressive
force is at a maximum and the Mechanism I cracks are well
developed. From then on, the tensile strength of the material
is raised to prevent any further breakage of the particle freezing the Mechanism I cracks in place with the configuration
shown in Fig. 2. It is then possible to see how the Mechanism
II stresses develop within the fragments. Fig. 9 shows a time
history of how the tensile stresses develop. At the start
(Fig. 9(a)) the stresses have much the same pattern as the
stresses developed in an unbroken particle (Fig. 4) and are
largely oriented perpendicular to the fan-like stresses. Note,
however, that there are gaps in the pattern where cracks have
formed, eliminating the ability of the material to locally support tensile stresses. As time goes on, the tensile stresses can
be seen to rotate until many are pointing radially outward
from the contact point in a direction parallel to the fan-like
cracks. Such stresses obviously account for the Mechanism
II breakage.
But it still remains to explain how these stresses come
about. While it is now apparent that Mechanism II breakage

A, V, Potopov CS, C~mlpbelll Powder Te('tmohL~y 93 f 1997) 13-21

18

"

"

'-~

"

"'1

~,~./~'=,

'

'""'

'

'""

3.eel10

'

"'1

' ....

''

'

"

"

"

'"1

"'

-- Ekin/Ecr = 1.84X103

r"

01

(.3

J L

10 - s

, , , i

10 - 4

, , , i

10 -3

, I

0.01

Vo/sqrt(E/p)

Fig. 7. The total crack length, divided by the panicle diameter, as a function of V.IC for two different impact energies.

is somehow a result of the fragments produced by Mechanism

!, the exact mechanism is not immediately apparent, However, a clue might be found in Fig. 10 which shows one of
the tensile stress patterns from Fig. 9 superimposed on the
crack pattern, if one examines this figure closely, one can see
that the tensile stresses tend to form on only one side of the
Mechanism ! fragments. Presumably then, the opposite sides
of the fragments are under compressive loading. This is a
classic bending stress pattern. Now the Mechanism ! breakage
generates long wedge-like fragments (i.e, the pieces between
the fan-like cracks) which are heavily loaded compressively
on the narrow tip of the wedge that resides near the contact
~ i n L ~ i s is a situation that is prone to buckling so that the
Mechanism !! cracks might result from a buckling of the
Mechanism ! fragments.
However, it is difficult to see much of this in Fig. 10 owing
to the generally chaotic nature of the breakage pattern. But
as allof this is done by computer simulation, it is possible to
create a simulated system on which these ideas may be more
clearly seen, For this purpose, a particle was created with a
uniform series of fan-like joints on which an idealized Mechanism ! breakage could occur. Two sets of simulations were
run for each case of large and small Vo/C. In the first set,
breakage was restricted to those idealized fan-like joints.
Such a particle could then undergo Mechanism ! breakage in
a more or less natural but less chaotic manner, but would be
prohibited from experiencing Mechanism lI breakage. Consequently, the forces that lead to Mechanism ii breakage
coaldbe more clearly observed in the fragments. In the second set of simulations, breakage was likewise prohibited in
all but the fan-like cracks as long as the particle's center of
mass was still approaching the plate (i.e. during the time that
Mechanism 1 breakage is dominant), At the time that the

center of mass was brought to a halt, breakage was permitted

everywhere in the particle (i.e. during the time that Mechanism It breakage occurred). Consequently, it was possible to
observe the breakage induced by Mechanism II stresses. Note
that if a particle were created with more joints than would
naturally form at a given impact velocity, the cracks did not
complete during the impact. It was thus necessary in performing these simulations to tune the number of cracks to VolC,
using a smaller number of fan-like cracks for small V,ICthan
for large Vo/C. That, of course, mirrors what is observed in
unmodified particles.
The results of these studies are shown in Figs. I I and 12
which correspond to small and large V,/C, respectively. To
illustrate the formation of the bending stresses we closely
examine the forces in only two fragments located symmetrically about the vertical centerline as indicated by crosses in
the top diagram. Now Fig. i0, which shows the tensile
stresses that form in the particle in the form of straight lines
through the element centers, is still very confusing and difficult to understand. After much careful consideration, we
found that the best way to illustrate the bending stresses is to
show whether the interelement joints are in a state of tension
or compression. (This is still slightly misleading as it gives
no indication of the magnitude of the stresses.) Fig. I I (b)
and (c) and Fig. 12(b) and (c) show examples of the interelement forces that develop within the two fragments. The
bending pattern can be clearly seen in that tensile stresses are
apparent on one side of the fragments while compressive
stresses are apparent on the other. Fig. I I (d) and Fig. 12(d)
show the breakage patterns that would result from these
stresses, and clearly show cracks perpendicular to the initial
fan-like cracks. Notice that figure for small Vo/C
(Fig. I 1(d)) shows breakage that is concentrated near the

A.V. Potapov, C.S. Campbell / Powder Technology 93 ( ! 997) 13-21

|

v , / c = Sxlo "4

.0

lallm'B
q,...

I
I

19

,
,

Ca)
,

Ume/(L~C)
l

v,,/C -- 5xlO-'I

CRACK I,I~IG'YI~

IrlmGOOlYf
i

i'

'

N .J

",/',

:
m

{b)

I
,

u~I(LJC)
Fig. 8. Time histories of the total crack length generated by an impact for (a) small V()IC = 0.0005 and (b) large VolC = 0.0049. Also plotted is the velocity
of the particle's center of mass. The vertical dashed line corresponds to the moment when the velocity of the center of mass has been brought to a halt (i.e. the
point of maximum compression}. The crack length is scaled with the maximum crack length obtained in the simulation.

contact point; in particular, the region immediately surrounding the contact point is broken down to single elements, the
largest degree of breakage permissible with this simulation
technique. On the other hand, the breakage for the high Vo/
C figure is more even and the broken region extends a bit
further along the fragment. Also there is noticeably less
breakage apparent in Fig. 12(d) than in Fig. l l(d), which
demonstrates that, at large Vo/C, more breakage occurs by
Mechanism I than by Mechanism If.
Note that these observations explain the velocity effect
observed by Charles [1]. As argued above, the ratio Vo/C
represents a characteristic strain of an unbroken particle and
in many ways controls the magnitude of the Mechanism I
stresses. Consequently, the larger Vo/C,the larger the degree
of Mechanism I breakage and the larger the number of fanlike cracks that appear. For a small I/o/Cimpact, the number
of fan-like cracks is small and the 'wedges' will have a large

included angle. If buckling were to occur in a small VolC

fragment, it would be confined to the narrow end; this would
account for the highly fractured wedge surrounding the contact point and is essentially what is observed in Fig. 1 i. But
at large Vo/C,the wedges will be relatively narrow and more
likely to break all the way along their length, just as is
observed in Fig. 12. Consequently, a small Vo/C impact
leaves large size fragments far from the contact point and
small sized fragments near the contact point. A large Vo/C
impact tends to be more evenly broken up, i.e. smaller large
fragments and fewer small fragments - - in short, a steeper
size distribution, as observed by Charles [ 1 ] and in the simulation results reported previously [4]. Furthermore, the
narrow fan segments tend to break into more elongated fragments that tend to mirror their large aspect ratio. Also,
because of the larger stresses induced at large Vo/C, breakage
is more likely to occur at smaller energies. Consequently, the

A. V, Potapot,. CS, CompbellI Powder Teclmology 93 (1997) 13-21

20

' . . . .

"

..................

....

..o..

. . . . . .

....

,o

- " ' " '

"

. . . .

-''"

...o

.......

..~,~..,

o,

" " '

.:,~,

ii

. ~ t * | ~ o t O

Cb)

eiQoeOee

oOoQ,IO

""

*~

"'''

too*l---|eo'~

oft#el

"'t

. . . .

:|;..

|=

Olee~tteeo

, :~;.

..0~--~,,.

"

!i

....

1,-.?

0to~l-e~w.~
.%&,]jee~Zl.~.

.....

i "

,~%oeet%S*-

Ce)

" '1e l1

..o,,.

Cc)

oooetttlt

::

....

It

.-x-~----

~:....~..

~-,,q~

Co)

ooq

"

.,.,tJ~--[O

~---,,,.'~% -

:;.-:

.....

'"

. . . . . . .

ii!

""

: .....__~.,..~'"

:-:;

CO

eoo
.

" '. 'e1~ O O e. .

- , L , , , . :

o..l.-elOo.~l
.it,~[~-ll,tlo

..~%Sl#~/ot

.
.

.
.

. . . .
~

o'~%OI

Cg)

eoeoe
.

-0t''''~t
*

t%O*"

Ch)

Fig. 9. A time history showing the development of the stresses that result in the Mechanism II cracks. For these studies, the cracks are frozen into the configuration
shown in Fig. 2. The history begins (a) at the moment when the particle's center of mass has been brought to a halt by the force at the contact. There the stress
pattern is similar to that ~ e n for an unbroken particle in Fig. 5. From then on, the tensile stresses can be seen to rotate until they are radially oriented and thus
can account for the Mechanism !! breakage.

H ,1

dointe In Tenelort

Fig. I0. A d e t a i l f i b principal tensile stresses generated in a broken particle

during rebound from the plate. The cracks have been frozen in the positions
they held in Fig. 2. One can see that the tensile stresses lie parallel to the
radial cracks and create the azimuthal cracks as the particle rebounds from
the plate and thus account for Mechanism II breakage.

two mechanisms described here and their interplay can

explain all of Charles' observations without mention of
elastic waves.
4. Conclusions
This paper has presented an examination of the mechanisms that lead to the pattern of impact breakage in two-

dolnte in Oomprenlon

Indueed Breakage

Fig. I I. A small V J C impact ( V.IC--0.0005 ) of a fictional particle whose

breakage is used to illustrate the origin of the Mechanism ll breakage. At
the start this particle is only allowed to break along specified fan-like cracks.
These are seen in (a) at the moment when the particle's center of mass has
come to a halt. (b) and (c) show the results from a simulation in which the
particle is not allowed to break further, Illustrated here are the joints held in
tension (b) and in compression (c). The bending stresses are apparent in
that compressive and tensile forces can be seen on opposite sides of the
fragments. (d) shows the breakage that would result if the fragments were
allowed to break following the halt of the particle's center of mass.

dimensional discs. To examine this problem, a computer

simulation was used which allowed free variation of all the
impact parameters. In particular, it allowed the ratio of impact
velocity to speed of sound, Vn/C,to be varied independently

A. I/. Potapm,. CS. CampbellI Powder Technology 93 t 1997) 13-21

Joints in Te~llon

Joints in Compmulon

(b)

()

Induced Bmokoge

(u)

Fig. 12. The same as Fig. 11, but at large V./C (V./C=0.0049).
of Poisson's ratio u and of the ratio of impact kinetic energy
to the energy required to propagate a crack across a particle
Ekin/Ecr. While the experiments were run for two-dimensional discs, there are obvious analogs with the behavior of
three-dimensional systems.
Careful observation showed that there were two mechanisms of impact breakage. Mechanism I dominated as the
particle approached the plate between the time that contact
was made and the time that the contact force brought the
particle to a halt. During this phase, the deformation about
the contact point induces tensile stresses across any line projecting radially outward from the contact point, resulting in
a fan-like distribution of cracks originating at the contact
point.
But as the particle rebounds, additional cracks begin to
form that lie perpendicular to the Mechanism ! cracks. These
Mechanism II cracks cannot be accounted for by the stresses
that form in an unbroken particle and must be a byproduct of
the Mechanism I breakage that has already occurred. Careful
observation showed that these tensile stresses result from
bending stresses and are indicative of a buckling of the
Mechanism I fragments.
The velocity effect described by Charles [ I ] was observed
to be a tradeoff between these two modes of breakage. Previously [4], it had been observed that the ratio Vo/C could
be interpreted as a characteristic particle deformation. Consequently, the larger Vo/C, the larger the deformation and the
larger the induced tensile stresses. Thus, one expects a larger

21

amount of Mechanism I breakage. However, the total breakage for a given energy is roughly a constant. Thus increasing
l/o/C results in an increased degree of Mechanism I breakage
at the expense of Mechanism II breakage. This is sufficient
to explain all of Charles' observations. First of all, large
velocity results in large deformation and thus in large Mechanism I tensile stresses which can induce breakage at smaller
energies than would be possible at low velocities. As fines
were observed to be generated largely in Mechanism II breakage, fewer fines would appear at large velocities when Mechanism I is dominant. Furthermore, the fan-like cracks
associated with Mechanism I naturally produce elongated
fragments. Lastly, the fan-like cracks span the particle and,
at large Vo/C, cause a large degree of breakage in the region
of the particle opposite the contact point. The increase in
slope of the size distribution at large velocity which was
observed by Charles [ l ] can then be explained as a consequence of the reduced size of the largest fragments (due to
the dominance of Mechanism l breakage) and the reduced
number of fines (due to the diminished importance of
Mechanism II breakage).

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the International Fine Particle
Research Institute to which the authors are extremely grateful.
CSC received support from the US Department of Energy
under Grant No. DE-FG03-91ER 14223.

References
III R.J. Charles,Trans. AIME,205 (1956) 1028-1032.
121 A.V. Potapov. M.A. Hopkins and C.S. Campbell, Int. J. Mod. Phys.
C, 6 (1995) 371-398.
131 A.V. Potapov. C.S. Campbelland M.A. Hopkins, Int. J. Mod. Phys.
C, 6 ( 1995) 399-425.
141 A.V. Potapov and C.S. Campbell,PowderTechnol., 81 (1994) 207216.
151 D.G. Papadopoulos and M. Ghadiri, Adv.PowderTechnol., 7 (1996)
183-197.
161 P. Guigon, M.-N. Pons, A. Thomas and J. Dodds. An experimental
study of fragmentationby high velocity impactson a target and by air
jet milling,IFPR!Annu.Rep.No. AR2704, International FineParticle
Research Institute, Pasadena, CA, 1996,75 pp.
171 C. Thornton and D.K. Kafui, Syrup.Attrition and Wear, Utrecht,The
Netherlands, 12-14 Oct. 1992.
181 K.D.Kafuiand C. Thornton, in C. Thornton (ed.), Powdersand Grains
93, Balkema,Rotterdam, 1993,pp. 401--406.
191 N. Arbiter.C.C.Harrisand G.A.Stambolitz.Trans. AIME,244 (1969)
118-133.
IiOl J.J. Gilvaryand B.H. Bergstrom,J. Appl.Phys.. 32 ( 1961) 400--410.