Micromechanical explanation of the compressibility of granular materials

In soil mechanics it is common to use constitutive equations based on the mechanics of continuous media to formulate the mechanical behavior of these materials. Laboratory tests used to calibrate behavior models are therefore interpreted from a macromechanical point of view. With advances in automatic calculation capabilities it is becoming more common to use discrete element models as an alternative to treating the soil as a continuous medium to solve engineering problems. This is a micromechanical approach that consists of explaining the overall behavior of the soil through the individual interaction of its constituent particles.