Coupling different levels of resolution in DEM simulations

Description

The large time and length scales involved in the simulation of industrial processes can increase the computational cost of the discrete element method beyond limits of feasibility. Coarse-grained models that apply simple scaling rules can help to ease the computational requirements, however, at the expense of reduced accuracy. Important features of the system may be missed and in the worst case the results obtained are erroneous. To overcome this problem we propose a novel technique that efficiently combines coarse-grained with fully resolved simulations. The approach is designed for granular systems, where the full details are required only in spatially confined regions of interest, whereas a lower resolution is sufficient for the rest of the system. Our method establishes two-way coupling between differently resolved parts of the system by volumetric passing of boundary conditions. Thus it becomes feasible to reach large time and length scales while retaining details of decisive regions. The method is tested by comparing the computed statistical properties of the adaptively resolved model with the corresponding properties of the fully resolved reference system.

Period	14 Mar 2016
Event title	CFDEMproject user meeting and workshop
Event type	Conference
Location	AustriaShow on map