Generating, Reproducing and Packaging of Random Volumes for Discrete Element Analysis of Discontinuous Materials

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 MSc. Student of Mechanics, Dept. of Mechanics Engineering, Birjand University, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Dept. of Mechanics Engineering, Birjand University, Iran

Abstract

Today, with the increasing need for simulation of granular materials and simulation of materials grading, creating random volumes and surfaces have become significantly important. Since discontinuous materials have particles with random shapes, thus, creating random volumes and using them as separate blocks in the analysis of discrete element can significantly help to adjust the numerical analysis results of discontinuous materials to the experimental results. In this paper, an appropriate process is offered to create and prepare particles with complex shapes in order to use them in the analysis of discontinuous materials by discrete element method. To this end, using two new proposed algorithms, random surfaces and volumes are created. Then, in order to use the produced random surfaces and volumes in the analytical software that uses discrete element method, an algorithm is offered to reproduce them through assembling the spheres on each other. Finally, since the initial input in the analysis of discontinuous materials is a packing set of discrete blocks by offering a new packaging algorithms, these discrete blocks are got packed. All algorithms were successfully implemented and the random volumes are generated and displayed in geometric modeling environment.

Keywords