Simulating Multi-Scale, Granular Materials and Their Transitions With a Hybrid Euler-Lagrange Solver

Multi-scale granular materials, such as powdered materials and mudslides, are pretty common in nature. Modeling such materials and their phase transitions remains challenging since this task involves the delicate representations of various ranges of particles with multiple scales that cause their property variations among liquid, granular solid (i.e., particles), and smoke-like materials. To effectively animate the complicated yet intriguing natural phenomena involving multi-scale granular materials and their phase transitions in graphics with high fidelity, this article advocates a hybrid Euler-Lagrange solver to handle the behaviors of involved discontinuous fluid-like materials faithfully. At the algorithmic level, we present a unified framework that tightly couples the affine particle-in-cell (APIC) solver with density field to achieve the transformation spanning across granular particles, dust cloud, powders, and their natural mixtures. For example, a part of the granular particles could be transformed into dust cloud while interacting with air and being represented by density field. Meanwhile, the velocity decrease of the involved materials could also result in the transit from the density-field-driven dust to powder particles. Besides, to further enhance our modeling and simulation power to broaden the range of multi-scale materials, we introduce a moisture property for granular particles to control the transitions between particles and viscous liquid. At the geometric level, we devise an additional surface-tracking procedure to simulate the viscous liquid phase. We can arrive at delicate viscous behaviors by controlling the corresponding yield conditions. Through various experiments with the different scenes design being conducted in our unified framework, we can validate the mixed multi-scale materials' mutual transformation processes. Our unified framework furnished with a hybrid solver can significantly enhance the modeling flexibility and the animation potential of the particle-grid hybrid materials in graphics.

Automated summary

This article proposes the use of a hybrid Euler-Lagrange solver to faithfully handle the behaviors of multi-scale granular materials and their phase transitions. By combining the affine particle-in-cell solver with density field in a unified framework, the transformation among granular particles, dust cloud, powders, and their mixtures can be achieved. Additionally, the introduction of a moisture property for granular particles and a surface-tracking procedure for simulating viscous liquid phase enhance the modeling and simulation capabilities of the particle-grid hybrid materials in graphics.