摘要 : This paper pragmatically discusses the ease with which 3D grain-scale variables of interest in soil mechanics can be obtained from 3D images of a natural granular material like sand recorded during a mechanical test. A mechanicall... 展开 This paper pragmatically discusses the ease with which 3D grain-scale variables of interest in soil mechanics can be obtained from 3D images of a natural granular material like sand recorded during a mechanical test. A mechanically meaningful test requires a sufficient number of particles to facilitate comparison to a macro-response at some scale, which in tomographic imaging means favouring the field of view over the spatial resolution. We suggest that grain kinematics are relatively easy to measure (as abundantly shown in previous work) but is of limited use for the mathematical modelling of granular materials. The measurement of inter-particle contact properties - essential to the mechanical transfer of forces throughout a granular assembly - are much more challenging and prone to error if not handled with care. A number of potential methods for facilitating these measurements in the future are presented and discussed. 收起