2024/10/18 by Dhairya R. Vyas, Vyas, Dhairya R., Julio M. Ottino +5 · 3 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #Contact Mechanics and Variational Inequalities #FOS: Physical sciences #Metallurgy and Material Forming #Soil, Finite Element Methods
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2410.14798
openalex publication_date 2024/10/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The Discrete Element Method is widely employed for simulating granular flows, but conventional integration techniques may produce unphysical results for simulations with static friction when particle size ratios exceed R ≈ 3. These inaccuracies arise because some variables in the velocity-Verlet algorithm are calculated at the half-timestep, while others are computed at the full timestep. To correct this, we develop an improved velocity-Verlet integration algorithm to ensure physically accurate outcomes up to the largest size ratios examined (R=100). The implementation of this improved integration method within the LAMMPS framework is detailed, and its effectiveness is validated through a simple three-particle test case and a more general example of granular flow in mixtures with large size-ratios, for which we provide general guidelines for selecting simulation parameters and accurately modeling inelasticity in large particle size-ratio simulations.