Conference Paper: Applications Discontinuous Deformation Analysis to Numerical Simulation of Granular Material

Title:	Applications Discontinuous Deformation Analysis to Numerical Simulation of Granular Material
Authors:	G. Rein , A. Andrés , F. Nieto
Keywords:	Granular Material, Discontinuous Deformation Analysis, Numerical Simulation, Gravity Table Separator, Compost, Vibrating Feeder.
Research topics
Abstract:	This paper presents a numerical model for the simulation of granular material movement. Granular material can be defined as the material formed by multiple solid particles and it represents the most common form of raw material in industry world-wide. The proposed computer model is based on Discontinuous Deformation Analysis, a numerical method recently adapted for simulation of rigid particles in motion. Gravity, friction, cohesion, impacts between particles and impacts with the boundaries are considered. DDA is based on a system of discontinuous elements where displacements of each block are the unknowns and are obtained solving the equilibrium equations. These equations are formulated through minimizing the total potential energy of the system, in a similar fashion to FEM. The motion of the particles is induced by the vibration of the deck on which they rest and boundary conditions are set to model a vibrating feeder for granular material transport. The model is compared to a simple analytical model used by industries, showing that qualitative results agree. The model permits to calculate the optimum machine parameters for efficient operation. Numerical results were applied to optimize the design of a gravity-table machine for compost of which already a first prototype has been constructed.
Reference:	CE World 2002, Virtual World Congress for Civil Engineering. June 2002.
Publication date:	June 2002
Internal document reference:	IIT-02-045A
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Institute for Research in Technology — Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica

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