Study on the multi-sphere method modeling the 3D particle morphology in DEM

Abstract

Particle morphology in terms of form and surface textures plays an important role in determining the microscopic and macroscopic behaviors of the granular sands. The overlapping multi-sphere clump method (OMCM) is a commonly used method to incorporate real particle morphology into DEM simulation by reconstructing DEM-oriented multi-sphere clumps to represent real particles. This paper discusses the efficiency of the reconstructed clump by analyzing its kinematic parameters (volume and principal moments of inertia) deviation from actual conditions. As a prior step, a Monte Carlo based method, which can handle the overlapping region inside a clump correctly, was introduced to calculate the accurate parameters of an overlapping multi-sphere clump. A quantitative deviation analysis was then conducted on different multi-sphere clump reconstruction precision, and optimal fitting precision can be rationally decided through this analysis procedure.