Morphological characterisation of ANSYS 3-D modelled aggregates

Morphological properties of aggregates are supposed to have a significant contribution to the engineering properties and behaviour of concrete material. Aggregate shape plays a vital role in the behaviour of fresh and hardened concrete and asphalt mixes. In this regard, when using numerical methods to generate concrete composite, emphasis should be placed on simulation of aggregate to resemble and get as close as possible to the actual concrete material. It is essential to determine and quantify the shape properties of randomly generated aggregates used in simulating concrete composite material. In this study, a well-known FEM software, ANSYS, was employed to generate 3-D coarse aggregates. The numerical generation of 3-D shapes relies on ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL). The geometrical features of simulated coarse irregular aggregates created with ANSYS software were compared with those of crushed actual aggregates quantified in terms of form indices determined experimentally from both 2-D projected area and 3-D dimensions. The simulated aggregates showed reliable sphericity and roundness that is within the known range of genuine crushed limestone aggregates. According to the t-test, it is found that there is no statistically significant difference between the sphericity mean and the hypothesised one.