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The objective of this paper is to quantitatively assess shear band evolution by using two-dimensional discrete element method (DEM).

The DEM model was first calibrated by retrospectively modelling existing triaxial tests. A series of DEM analyses was then conducted with the focus on the particle rotation during loading. An approach based on particle rotation was developed to precisely identify the shear band region from the surrounding. In this approach, a threshold rotation angle ω₀ was defined to distinguish the potential particles inside and outside the shear band and an index g(ω₀) was introduced to assess the discrepancy between the rotation response inside and outside shear band. The most distinct shear band region can be determined by the ω₀ corresponding to the peak g(ω₀). By using the proposed approach, the shear band development of two computational cases with different typical localised failure patterns were successfully examined by quantitatively measuring the inclination angle and thickness of shear band, as well as the microscopic quantities.

The results show that the shear band formation is stress-dependent, transiting from conjugated double shear bands to single shear band with confining stress increasing. The shear band evolution of two typical localised failure modes exhibits opposite trends with increasing strain level, both in inclination angle and thickness. Shear band featured a larger volumetric dilatancy and a lower coordination number than the surrounding. The shear band also significantly disturbs the induced anisotropy of soil.

This paper proposed an approach to quantitatively assess shear band evolution based on the result of two-dimensional DEM modelling.

This paper presents the results of a Discrete Element Method study on the influence of particle shape on the strength and deformation behaviour of two dimensional assemblages of ellipse‐shaped particles. Assemblages of particles with varying individual particle aspect ratio were formed with a preferred bedding plane, isotropically compressed with varying isotropic confining stresses and then sheared with biaxial compression. The results indicate that Discrete Element analysis using two dimensional ellipse‐shaped particles produces mechanical behaviour which is similar both quantitatively and qualitatively to the behaviour of real granular materials. Even small particle out‐of‐roundness increases the observed macroscopic strength significantly. In systems composed of flatter particles, particle rotations are greatly inhibited. Decomposing relative contact displacements into contributions due to particle rotation and translation demonstrates that most of the displacements in round particle systems are due to individual particle rotation.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a concurrent multiscale computational method for granular materials in the quasi-static loading regime.

Overlapped-coupling between a micropolar linear elastic one-dimensional (1D) mixed finite element (FE) model and a 1D chain of Hertzian nonlinear elastic, glued, discrete element (DE) spheres is presented. The 1D micropolar FEs and 1D chain of DEs are coupled using a bridging-scale decomposition for static analysis.

It was found that an open-window DE domain may be coupled to a micropolar continuum FE domain via an overlapping region within the bridging-scale decomposition formulation for statics. Allowing the micropolar continuum FE energy in the overlapping region to contribute to the DE energy has a smoothing effect on the DE response, especially for the rotational degrees of freedom (dofs).

The paper focusses on 1D examples, with elastic, glued, DE spheres, and a linear elastic micropolar continuum implemented in 1D.

A concurrent computational multiscale method for granular materials with open-window DE resolution of the large shearing region such as at the interface with a penetrometer skin, will allow more efficient computations by reducing the more costly DE domain calculations, but not at the expense of generating artificial boundary effects between the DE and FE domains.

Open-window DE overlapped-coupling to FE continuum domain, accounting for rotational dofs in both DE and FE methods. Contribution of energy from micropolar FE in overlap region to underlying DE particle energy.

The purpose of this paper is used to study the combined effect of solute gradient and magnetic field on dusty couple-stress fluid in the presence of rotation through a porous medium.

The perturbation technique (experimental method) is applied in this study.

For the case of stationary convection, solute gradient and rotation have stabilizing effect, whereas destabilizing effect is found in dust particles in the system. Couple stress and medium permeability both have dual character to its stabilizing effect in the absence of magnetic field and rotation. Magnetic field succeeded in establishing a stabilizing effect in the absence of rotation.

The results are discussed by allowing one variable to vary and keeping other variables constant, as well as by drawing graphs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of particle motion on the lubrication characteristics. The dynamics of the particle in the lubricant is also studied.

The dynamics of the particle is studied using Newton's second law. The particle dynamic equation is solved to determine the particle velocity, angular velocity, and location. The modified Reynolds equation is solved in couple with particle motion to determine the film pressure and velocity.

The motion of a particle suspended in the lube oil is clarified. The initial relative velocity between the particle and the fluid has a significant effect on the lubrication. For the same particle location and velocity, the larger particle or the closer distance between particle center and lower plate has greater effects on the film pressure.

The influence of the particle geometry on the lubrication is neglected in the study because of the small size of the particle, this neglect is idealized. Further study will take the effects of the particle geometry into consideration.

The paper provides the motion of the particle in the lubricant, and the modified Reynolds equation considering the particle translation as well as rotation is derived.

Granular material exhibits rich dynamical behaviors under impacting, and its impacting dynamical process is seriously influenced by many factors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamical response of granular bed obliquely impacted by a rotational projectile, and the effect of density ratio and diameter ratio on its penetration depth is mainly considered.

In most experiments, as the angular velocity and the impact velocity always produce a coupling effect on the whole impact process, then it is quite difficult to separately distinguish the influence of angular velocity. Therefore, the discrete element method is used here to achieve this purpose. The authors vary one parameter and keep other parameter unchanged, and then discuss the effect of these parameters on penetration depth statistically.

The numerical model in this paper can effectively predict the dynamical process of granular medium under impacting. The projectile’s penetration depth exhibits a similar scaling with its angular velocity under different density ratios and diameter ratios, and the angular velocity exhibits an obvious criticality.

A DEM code and corresponding statistical approach are used to explore the complex dynamical process of a granular material obliquely impacted by a rotation projectile.

The purpose of this paper is to present a simple non‐symmetric shape, the poly‐ellipsoid, to describe particles in discrete element simulations that incur a computational cost similar to ellipsoidal particles.

Particle shapes are derived from joining octants of eight ellipsoids, each having different aspect ratios, across their respective principal planes to produce a compound surface that is continuous in both surface coordinate and normal direction. Because each octant of the poly‐ellipsoid is described as an ellipsoid, the mathematical representation of the particle shape can be in the form of either an implicit function or as parametric equations.

The particle surface is defined by six parameters (vs the 24 parameters required to define the eight component ellipsoids) owing to dependencies among parameters that must be imposed to create continuous intersections. Despite the complexity of the particle shapes, the particle mass, centroid and moment of inertia tensor can all be computed in closed form.

The particle can be implemented in any contact algorithm designed for ellipsoids with minor modifications to determine in which pair of octants the potential contact occurs.

The poly‐ellipsoid particle is a computational device to represent non‐spherical particles in DEM models.

A microstructural finite element model (MFEM) for granular material considering the microstructure of material is presentented. In the MFEM method, a volume of large number of particles is represented by an element consisting of a few nodal points. The stiffness matrix of the element is then formulated based on the contact stiffness and the packing arrangement of the particles. The method can be easily applied in the framework of finite element technique to solve boundary value problems in practical situations. Applicability of the model is evaluated by comparing the results of MFEM model with that from DEM model.

A new coupled model is developed to simulate the interaction between fluid droplet collisions on discrete particles (DPs) by using mathematic function.

In this model, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is used based on the kernel function and the time step which takes into consideration to the fluid domain in accordance with the discrete element method (DEM) with resistance function. The interaction between fluid and DPs consists of three parts, which are repulsive force, viscous shear force and attractive force caused by the capillary action. The numerical simulation of droplet collision on DPs presents the whole process of droplet motion. Otherwise, an experimental data were conducted to record the realistic process for verification.

The comparison result indicated that the numerical simulation is capable of capturing the entire process for droplet collision on DPs.

However, based on the difference of experimental environment, type of the DP and setups, the maximum spreading dimeters of could not fit the experimental data exactly.

In sum, the coupled SPH-DEM method simulation shows that the coupled model of SPH-DEM developed an entire effectiveness process for fluid–solid interaction problem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine several calibration techniques that have been developed to determine the discrete element method (DEM) parameters for slow and rapid unconfined flow of granular conical pile formation. This paper also aims to discuss some of the methods currently employed to scale particle properties to reduce computational resources and time to solve large DEM models.

DEM models have been calibrated against simple bench‐scale experimental results to examine the validity of selected parameters for the contact, material and mechanical models to simulate the dynamic and static behaviour of cohesionless polyethylene pellets. Methods to determine quantifiable single particle parameters such as static friction and the coefficient of restitution have been highlighted. Numerical and experimental granular pile formation has been investigated using different slumping and pouring techniques to examine the dependency of the type of flow mechanism on the DEM parameters.

The proposed methods can provide cost effective and simple techniques to determine suitable input parameters for DEM models. Rolling friction and particle shape representation has shown to have a significant influence on the bulk flow characteristics via a sensitivity analysis and needs to be accessed based on the environmental conditions.

This paper describes several effective known and novel methodologies to characterise granular materials that are needed to accurately model granular flow using the DEM to provide valuable quantitative data. For the DEM to be a viable predictive tool in industrial applications which often contain huge quantities of particles with random particle shapes and irregular properties, quick and validated techniques to “tune” DEM models are necessary.