Discrete element method

Models of granular media to describe the interaction between spherical particles was first
introduced by cundall and strack. The local contact force and torque are developed when the
particles overlap one another. The translational and rotational motional are calculated as
follows

d vp
mp =F p ,c + F p ,b + F p ,f → p
dt

d wp
Ip =T p
dt

The sphero-cylindrical particles were considered in this study, an algorithm was developed to
calculate the contact forces. Firstly the spherocylindrial of shaft σ having a diameter δ and the
length of σ has a is λ .The contact forces were calculated for every time step and computed by
numerical integration of newton’s law of motion for each particle. The newton’s third law gives
f f → p=−f f → p is the force applied of one particle on another and vis-à-vis. The most important
part of the contact forces is to find the shortest between the particles both the shafts of each
particle. This is achieved y the following algorithm

si=r i+ λ L/2 ui

s j=r j+ M L/2u j

The values of λ and  are the points which represent the minimum distance between two shafts.
The shortest distance is given by the absolute difference between siand s j. The points siand s j
are the points central axes of Piand P j.

Contact force acting on a particle as a result of overlap is the total amount of normal and
tangential forces. The normal force is given by linear spring dash pot model and tangential
contact force is calculated from coulomb type friction. The equations are as follows:
Coefficient of restitution:

The measurements for coefficients were conducted using a flat plate and spherical particles of
alumide material. The spherical was dropped from a height onto the fixed plate on a rotaing
axis. A HD high speed camera was used to capture the collision from 10-80 degrees at 10 degree
increments. The values for were found to be as

Coefficient of friction:

The coefficient friction is found from a sliding experiment. A block of alumide material was
placed on the same material slab , the angle α is measured as the difference between the intial
and at the angle which the block starts to slide. The resulting coeffcienst were