Numerical modeling of granular media with deformable composite particles
Pages 45-52
Bogdan Barvinschi, Paul Barvinschi
Abstract
The development of theoretical models to simulate and investigate the static and dynamic behavior of granular media is a topic of great relevance to engineering and natural sciences. There are many modeling strategies that can be used to simulate granular media. These include models that rely on continuum mechanics and that disregard the discrete nature of the flow, and the so-called particulate models that are based on individual motion of particles, with a special treatment for eventual collisions. The paper presents a model of the second type, based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM). Usually, the particles composing a granular media are treated as rigid and having the same shape (spheres, ellipses, or rigidly glued spheres, for examples). In our model each particle is a regular collection of spheres and springs, so we are able to vary the shape and dimensions of the particles at the beginning and during a simulation. Another advantage of using spheres in granular media simulation is related to the implementation of the collision detection algorithm; such an algorithm could be very tedious even for simple planar shapes like triangles or squares, but is very simple to implement with circles (in 2D) or spheres (in 3D). The computer program developed so far is a serial one.