Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING
Volume 119, Issue 5, Pages 432-451Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/nme.6056
Keywords
damping; DEM; Hertzian contact; stability; time step
Funding
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [EP/N004477/1]
- EPSRC [EP/N004477/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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The discrete element method (DEM) typically uses an explicit numerical integration scheme to solve the equations of motion. However, like all explicit schemes, the scheme is only conditionally stable, with the stability determined by the size of the time step. Currently, there are no comprehensive techniques for estimating appropriate DEM time steps when a nonlinear contact interaction is used. It is common practice to apply a large factor of safety to these estimates to ensure stability, which unnecessarily increases the computational cost of these simulations. This work introduces an alternative framework for selecting a stable time step for nonlinear contact laws, specifically for the Hertz-Mindlin contact law. This approach uses the fact that the discretised equations of motion take the form of a nonlinear map and can be analysed as such. Using this framework, we analyse the effects of both system damping and the initial relative velocity of collision on the critical time step for a Hertz-Mindlin contact event between spherical particles.
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