The porosity and micro-structure have a significant influence on the elastic properties of consolidated granular aggregates such as sedimentary rocks and sintered materials. Herein, a stress-strain model is presented for these materials accounting for the effect of porosity as well as the micro-structure. The model considers the granular aggregate to be conceptually composed of polyhedral cells with a single grain and associated void space. A local constitutive law is defined at each cell by considering the average stress and average strain in the cell. The local stiffness tensor is found to be a function of the particle stiffness tensor and a local fabric tensor. Using the local constitutive law and volume averaging principles of the 'self consistent' method an overall constitutive law is defined for a representative volume containing several cells. The overall constitutive law is then simplified under a uniform strain assumption and closed from relationships are derived for isotropic and simple cubic granular aggregates. The applicability of the derived relationships are examined by comparison of predicted results with measured Young's modulus and porosity relationship.
