Output details
15 - General Engineering
University of Oxford
Potential particles: a method for modelling non-circular particles in DEM
DEM is a numerical technique for modelling the mechanics of granular materials explicitly at a particulate level. Particles are usually (but unrealistically) modelled spherically, because this greatly reduces computational time. The significance of this paper is that it pioneers an entirely novel technique for describing non-spherical particles, using a highly compact mathematical form without the need to resort to the complex point/edge/face data structures used in other approaches. Boon's doctoral research extends the work to rock-mechanics applications using linear programming techniques to achieve further efficiency gains.