Generation of realistic sand particles with fractal nature using an improved spherical harmonic analysis

Based on X-ray micro-computed tomography images of natural sand particles, a set of spherical harmonic descriptors and an associated fractal dimension were introduced to characterise the multi-scale particle morphology. Based on the statistics of the fractal dimensions for different types of sands, this study proposed a practical method to generate realistic sand particles with the major morphological features of their mother sands. To validate this method, two virtual sand assemblies were generated, whose 3D printing and shape parameters were compared with those of real sand particles. Furthermore, these generated particle morphologies were incorporated into DEM simulations of granular column collapse.