Engineering Computations

Shape representation of axi-symmetrical, non-spherical particles in discrete element

simulation using multi-element model particles
J.F. Favier M.H. Abbaspour-Fard M. Kremmer A.O. Raji
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J.F. Favier M.H. Abbaspour-Fard M. Kremmer A.O. Raji, (1999),"Shape representation of axi-symmetrical,
non-spherical particles in discrete element simulation using multi-element model particles", Engineering
Computations, Vol. 16 Iss 4 pp. 467 - 480
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JOHN R. WILLIAMS, ALEX P. PENTLAND, (1992),"SUPERQUADRICS AND MODAL DYNAMICS FOR
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 Shape representation of axi- Axi-symmetrical,
non-spherical
symmetrical, non-spherical particles

particles in discrete element

simulation using multi-element 467

model particles
Received December 1998
Revised February 1999
Accepted February 1999
J.F. Favier, M.H. Abbaspour-Fard, M. Kremmer and A.O. Raji
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 16:38 21 February 2015 (PT)

Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science,

University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Keywords Discrete element method, Particles
Abstract A new method of representing non-spherical, smooth-surfaced, axi-symmetrical
particles in discrete element (DE) simulation using model particles comprising overlapping
spheres of arbitrary size whose centres are fixed in position relative to each other along the major
axis of symmetry of the particle is presented. Contact detection and calculation of force-
deformation and particle movement is achieved using standard DE techniques modified to
integrate the behaviour of each element sphere with that of the multi-element particle to which it
belongs. The method enables the dynamic behaviour of particles of high aspect ratio and irregular
curvature (in two dimensions) to be modelled. The use of spheres to represent a particle takes
advantage of the computational speed and accuracy of contact detection for spheres, which should
make the method comparable in computational efficiency to alternative schemes for representing
non-spherical particles.

Introduction
The choice of particle shape representation in discrete element (DE) modelling
of the dynamic behaviour of particulate assemblies is critical to the accuracy of
the simulation of real particle behaviour, the method used for contact detection
and the method of computation of contact forces (Hogue, 1998). The earliest DE
models were two-dimensional and employed either circular (Cundall and
Strack, 1979) or polygonal elements (Walton, 1983). Later work extended shape
representation to three dimensions, using spheres (Cundall, 1988a) and
polyhedra (Cundall, 1988b; Hocking, 1989) with the addition of ellipses (Ting et
al., 1993) and more recently ellipsoids (Lin and Ng, 1997) and superquadric
functions (Williams and Pentland, 1989; Hogue, 1998). Although contact
detection and computation time are very important, the critical objective in DE
modelling is accurate simulation of the behaviour of an assembly of real
particles. The influence of particle shape on the predicted behaviour is less well
documented than the relationship between shape and the efficiency of contact
detection. Exceptions are DE models using polyhedra, which can be designed
to closely represent the shape of flat surfaced, angular particles (Hart et al.,
1988; Gaboussi and Barbosa, 1990). We therefore restrict our attention to Engineering Computations,
Vol. 16 No. 4, 1999, pp. 467-480.
particles with curved surfaces and consider only particle shape representations # MCB University Press, 0264-4401
 EC suitable for application in DE modelling, i.e. those which do not require highly
16,4 specialised (and computationally expensive) contact detection schemes as
employed for complex shapes in CAD/CAM models.
The most common element shapes used in DE models are circular discs (e.g.
Cundall and Strack, 1983; Ng and Dobry, 1994; Xu and Yu, 1997) or spheres (e.g.
see Thornton and Kafui, 1997; Ning et al., 1997). While spherical elements have
468 the great advantage of computational simplicity, particle rotation is constrained
only by frictional forces due to contact with neighbouring particles. This feature
has been thought to be one of major sources of deviation in the simulation of
non-spherical particles whose rotation is arrested by interlocking (Oda et al.,
1983; Lin and Ng, 1995). In addition, normal contact forces do not contribute to
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the moment acting on a spherical element as each normal contact force always
acts through the centre of the element. This has the effect of weighting the
rotational effect of the contact force vector towards the tangential component.
These two inherent attributes of circular or spherical particles will contribute to
a degradation in the accuracy of simulations of the behaviour of particles which
deviate to any significant degree from purely spherical.
The use of elliptical elements was developed by Ting et al. (1993) as an
improvement on circular elements to represent real curved surface particles
with an aspect ratio greater than one. Significant improvements were reported
in the accuracy of simulations using elliptical particles instead of circular
elements to represent sand under quasi-static compression (Ting et al., 1995;
Zhu et al., 1996). However, due to the complexity of current methods of contact
detection for elliptical elements, the computation time is much greater than for
circular elements, for which a simple test of distance between element centres is
required (Sakaguchi et al., 1994, Lin and Ng, 1995). An additional disadvantage
associated with elliptical elements, and any other non-circular two-dimensional
element, is the loss of the effect of particle rotation in the third dimension. Lin
and Ng (1995) described a DE model using ellipsoids, which overcame this
limitation but incurred a significant computational overhead and error related
to contact detection. An alternative to circular elements which still employs
geometric primitives is the ``pair-element'' which comprises a pair of circular
elements of equal diameter fixed rigidly together with their centres one
diameter apart giving a particle with an aspect ratio of two (Taylor and Preece,
1992; Sakaguchi et al., 1994). The element circles can not rotate independently
of each other so rotational as well as translational acceleration will be applied
to the particle. Although pair-element particles were defined in two dimensions
the same principles could be applied to paired spheres. Ning et al. (1997) joined
many spheres together by applying adhesion between spheres to create an
agglomerate. Such agglomerates could be considered as irregular shaped 3D
particles with a surface contour following the exposed surface of the spheres
positioned on the exterior of the agglomerate. In their study, Ning et al. (1997)
tracked the position of, and contacts between spheres during impact of an
agglomerate against a planar surface, but it is not clear whether the inertia of
the whole agglomerate was considered.
 Smooth (non-circular) irregular shaped particles can also be represented by Axi-symmetrical,
using one or more continuous functions to describe the surface of a particle. non-spherical
These may be arbitrary functions or superquadrics. A wide range of shapes particles
can be generated using one or more superquadrics (Barr, 1981; Williams and
Pentland, 1989). Contact detection between two superquadric shapes can be
determined from the intersection of the two functions but, due to the non-
linearity of the equations, this process is computationally expensive and almost 469
impractical (Hogue, 1998). There will also be some error in determination of the
contact normal (Lin and Ng, 1995). To enable the use of superquadric derived
shapes, Williams and O'Conner (1995) proposed (for two-dimensional shapes)
the use of a discrete function representation (DFR). The DFR is also applicable
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to arbitrary shapes defined by one or more continuous functions. The boundary

of the body with arbitrary shape is discretised using a certain density of nodes.
The particle thus has both a continuous and discrete representation. Contact
detection techniques similar to those employed for polygonal shapes are then
used for detecting contacts between particles. Detection is straightforward for a
superquadric using DFR as the ingress of a contacting node into the inside of
the particle is easily determined from the value returned by using the node co-
ordinates in a function derived from the superquadric (termed the inside-out
function). An alternative type of discrete representation is that described by
Munjiza et al. (1995), who represented arbitrary two-dimensional shapes by a
set of boundary nodes with associated information on their mode of
connectivity. Contact detection is achieved by first narrowing the search space
and then discretising the space with a grid of points and determining which
grid points lie inside both contacting bodies. This method allows the generation
of intricate geometries but requires a fairly complex contact detection
algorithm and is limited to two-dimensional shapes.
Hogue (1998) extended the application of the DFR to three-dimensional
particles using a 3D polar descriptor to generate surface nodes. Contact
detection is similar to that used in the 2D case; a bounding sphere is used to
narrow the search range and then the contacting nodes are tested using either
the inside-out function or, for other arbitrary shapes, by testing whether a
contacting node lies inside a plane defined by the three closest surface nodes. A
common feature of both DFR schemes is the dependence of the accuracy of
contact detection on the number and distribution of nodes on the surface of the
particle. Hogue (1998) noted that the efficiency also depends on the particle
shape with efficiency decreasing with increase in aspect ratio. Although the
DFR approach allows the representation of arbitrary shapes (at least those
surfaces which can be described with continuous functions) it has two
disadvantages:
(i) the surface of particle is approximated by lines or triangular plates, the
size of which depends on the number and distribution of nodes; and
(ii) an average rather than the true contact normal is usually calculated due
to the lack of coincidence of nodes on contacting bodies.
 EC In this paper, we present a method of generating and modelling contacts
16,4 between three-dimensional axi-symmetrical particles constructed of
overlapping spheres. The use of spheres in these multi-element particles
greatly simplifies contact detection by retaining the principles normally
employed for systems of single spheres. The multi-element particle algorithm is
derived, some examples of possible particle shapes which can be created and an
470 example of the deposition under a gravity field of an assembly of multi-element
particles with high aspect ratio is presented.

Multi-element particle model

Model particles are constructed of spheres whose centres are located on the axis
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of symmetry. Spheres may overlap and may vary in diameter along the length
of the axis of symmetry. The surface of a particle is approximated by
inscribing spheres such that the surface of each sphere is tangent to the surface
of the particle at the point of contact. The position of each element sphere is
fixed relative to the other elements within a particle. For clarity the theory is
developed for a simple two element particle but there is no theoretical limit to
the number of element spheres comprising a particle.

Resultant force and moment acting on a particle due to contacts

Consider two particles, each comprising two spherical elements of the same
diameter, in contact at point c as shown in Figure 1 (only two dimensions are
shown but the theory is developed for three dimensions). The global position of
each particle is determined at its centroid by its global position vector rp G† .
The relative position vector between the particle centroid and the centre of an
element sphere dps is known a priori because the position of each sphere within
a particle is determined in advance. The position of contact point, c, on each
element sphere relative to the particle centroid is
particle axes of symmetry
Y

c.g.
Figure 1. Ipc
Schematic of contact dps Key
c
between two multi- rpsc Sphere centre
element axi-symmetrical
Particle centroid, c.g.
particles, each rp(G)
comprising two element Contact point, c
rps
spheres of the same
diameter
X
 lpc ˆ dps ‡ rpsc 1† Axi-symmetrical,
non-spherical
where rpsc defines the contact point with respect to the centre of element particles
sphere, s, belonging to particle, p. Contact detection between two multi-element
particles is based on detection of contacts between their element spheres.
Contact is detected if the distance between the centres of the two contacting
element spheres is equal to or less than the sum of their radii. Any suitable 471
method may be used to optimise the search for contacts as are standard in DE
codes employing single spheres except that in this case contacts are determined
particle by particle rather than independently for each sphere.
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Contact forces are determined by application of a force-displacement law for

normal and tangential contacts
fc ˆ fn ‡ ft 2†

where fc , fn and ft are the total, normal and tangential contact forces
respectively.
The total moment about the centre of an element sphere due to tangential
forces is
X
C ÿ

Mtps ˆ rpsc  ftpsc 3†
cˆ1

where ft psc is the tangential component of the contact force at contact point c
and C is the total number of contact points on each sphere at the current time-
step (Figure 2a). The resultant contact force acting on each element sphere is
X
C
fps ˆ fpsc 4†
cˆ1

This force is transferred to the centre of each element sphere as shown in

Figure 2b. The moments generated by forces acting on the centre of each
element sphere which do not pass through the centroid of the particle are then
added to the moment of the tangential forces, giving the total moment acting on
the particle
X
S ÿ

Mp ˆ dps  fps ‡ Mtps
sˆ1
" #
X
S ÿ
XC ÿ

Mp ˆ dps  fps ‡ rpsc  ftpsc 5†
sˆ1 cˆ1

where S is the total number of element spheres within the particle (Figure 2c).
 EC fnpB1
16,4 (a)
fcpB1

rpB1 ftpB1

472
ftpA2
rpA2
A
fcpA2
rpA1 fnpA2
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fnpA1 ftpA1

fcpA1

(b)
MtpB
fpB

dpB
dpA

MtpA fpA

(c)

Mp

fp

Figure 2.
Method of transfer of Notes: Resultant forces and moments from normal and tangential forces respectively acting on
each element (spheres A and B) shown in (a) are transferred to the centre of each sphere as
forces acting on element shown in (b). The moments caused by forces whose line of action does not pass through the
spheres to the centroid particle centroid are then transferred, along with moments due to tangential forces, to the particle
of a particle centroid as shown in (c)

The total out-of-balance force acting on the particle is the vectorial sum of
resultant contact forces acting on its element spheres
X
S
fp ˆ fps 6†
sˆ1
 Translational and rotational motion of a particle Axi-symmetrical,
Once the total force and moment acting on a particle have been determined non-spherical
Newton's second law of motion is used to calculate the translational and particles
rotational acceleration of the particle. Using an approximate mass moment of
inertia Ip, the undamped accelerations can be expressed as
fp
ap ˆ ‡g 7† 473
mp

Mp
p ˆ 8†
Ip
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where mp , ap and p are respectively the particle mass, translational

acceleration and rotational acceleration. However, equation (8) is valid only for
spheres. Accurate calculation of the rotational motion particles with aspect
ratios greater the one requires calculation of the mass moment of inertia with
respect to the global axes. This factor cannot be neglected in DE models of non-
spherical particles because it will have a significant effect on the rotational
acceleration (Lin and Ng, 1997). This will be of particular importance for
particles with large aspect ratios such as can be generated using the multi-
element method.
The rigid body motion can be expressed by the Euler equations of motion of
a body in space in relation to the principal axes of inertia of the body (Hart et al.,
1988). Knowledge is required of the principle axes of a particle, the three
principal mass moments of inertia and the exact position and orientation of a
particle at each time-step with respect to the spatially fixed global axes. During
particle generation the mass, the centre of gravity and the inertia tensor of a
particle according to the centre of gravity is calculated

X
S X
S
mp ˆ mi ˆ  Vi 9†
iˆ1 iˆ1

P
S
mi xi
iˆ1
xc:g: ˆ 10†
mp
2 3
IXX ÿIXY ÿIXZ
4
I ˆ ÿIYX IYY ÿIXY 5
ÿIZX ÿIZY IZZ
 EC 2P P ÿ
P P
16,4 IXXi ‡ mi x2Yi ‡ x2Zi ÿ IXYi ÿ ÿ mi xXi xYi

P P P P
I ˆ 4 ÿ IYXi ÿ mi xXi xYi IYYi ‡ mP 2 2
i xXi ‡ xYi
P P P
ÿ IZXi ÿ mi xXi xZi ÿ IZYi ÿ mi xYi xZi
P P 3
474 ÿ P IXZi ÿ P mi xXi xZi
5
Pÿ IYZiPÿ ÿ m2 i xYi xZi
2

11†
IZZi ‡ mi xXi ‡ xYi
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where  is particle density, Vi is the contribution of the ith element sphere to

the total particle volume and mi is the contribution of the ith element sphere to
the total mass where the centre of mass mi is a distance xXi ; xYi and xZi from the
principal axes of the particle.
Using the three characteristic eigenvalues and the principle direction cosine
matrix to transform the co-ordinates of the centroid of each element sphere to a
set of axes aligned with the principal directions gives the new inertia tensor
2 3
IXX 0 0
I ˆ 4 0 IYY 0 5 12†
0 0 IZZ

where the three diagonal elements IXX ; IYY and IZZ are the principal moments of
inertia in the Euler equations. The off-diagonal elements in this matrix, the
products of inertia, become zero. Three arbitrary particle reference points
A1 ; A2 and A3 in the local co-ordinate frame are then chosen. The position
vectors of these points have to be linearly independent, so that their
determinant is not equal to zero. The new inertia tensor can be visualised by
the inertia ellipsoid whose major axes are coincident with the principal axes of
inertia as shown in Figure 3a.
The total applied moment on a particle MG ˆ Mp is transformed from
global co-ordinates to the local co-ordinate system during each time-step, N, by
a transformation matrix R N † . The matrix R N † is determined by comparing
the rotated reference points with their origins A1 ; A2 and A3 using
h iÿ1
‰RŠ ˆ ‰AŠ B ÿ rp G† 13†

where ‰B ÿ rp G† Š is the matrix of the rotated reference frame as shown in

Figure 3b. The local applied moment is then
‰ML Š ˆ ‰RŠ‰MG Š 14†
 In the DEM the new angular velocity of the particle is w ˆ p
t, therefore the Axi-symmetrical,
local rotational acceleration p L† can be calculated using the Euler equations non-spherical
MX L† ˆ IXX pX L† ‡ IZZ ÿ IYY † pY L† pZ L†
t†2 particles

MY L† ˆ IYY pY L† ‡ IXX ÿ IZZ † pX L† pZ L†
t†2 15†

475
MZ L† ˆ IZZ pZ L† ‡ IYY ÿ IXX † pX L† pY L†
t†2

The acceleration according to global co-ordinates, p G† is then determined by a

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transformation with the inverted matrix Rÿ1 . For this analysis it is not
necessary to use the inverted matrix because for an orthonormal basis
transformation the inverted matrix is equal to the transposed matrix, RT . This
formulation is the most computationally efficient since the calculation of an
inverted matrix is more computationally intensive. The global rotational
acceleration vector is then
h i h i
T
p G† ˆ ‰R Š p L† 16†

Using a central difference scheme and explicit numerical integration, and

assuming accelerations and velocities remain constant during a time-step, the
translational and rotational velocity of the particle are then computed
N ‡12† N ÿ12†
vp ˆ vp ‡ ap N
t 17†

N ‡12† N ÿ12† N
wp ˆ wp ‡ p
t 18†

YL
XL

B2 Figure 3.
Characteristic inertial
B3 ellipsoid for a particle
(a) YL (b) ZG
B1
c.g.
ZL (a) during particle
A2 XL generation with
A3
A1 ZL arbitrary reference
rP(G) points A1, A2 and A3
c.g. = [0 0 0] YG
and (b) during
transformation of local
rotational acceleration to
the global co-ordinate
system showing rotated
reference points B1, B2
XG and BDN3
 EC Using equation (18) and integrating over the time-step the new position of the
16,4 particle is
N ‡1† N ‡12†
rp G† ˆ rpN G† ‡ vp
t 19†

476 Velocity and position of element spheres

The absolute velocity of the centre of an element sphere with respect to the
global axes is
ÿ

vps ˆ vp ‡ wp  dps ‡ vrel 20†
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where vrel is the relative translational velocity of the element sphere with
respect to the particle centroid (observed from local co-ordinate system).
However, the distance between the centroid of the particle and the centre of an
element sphere is always fixed, therefore, equation (20) becomes
vps ˆ vp ‡ wp  dps † 21†

The magnitude of a vector dps which locates the centre of sphere s with respect
to the particle centroid is fixed but its direction will be changed due to particle
rotation. The vector can be written in terms of its unit vector n as
dps ˆ jdps jn 22†

The unit vector expressed in term of its direction cosines with respect to the
global axis is
n ˆ Cosx i ‡ Cosy j ‡ Cosz k 23†

where x ; y and z are the directional angles of the vector with respect to the
global axes. The magnitude remains constant (unity) if
cos 2x ‡ cos 2y ‡ cos 2z ˆ 1 24†

The unit vector becomes after rotation

n_ ˆ wp  n 25†

However, equation (25) is true only for infinitesimal rotations, i.e. when the
time-step,
t, approaches zero. Since the actual time-step is greater than zero
there will be an error in calculation of the new unit vector. This error can be
reduced by keeping the time-step as short as possible and by normalising the
error difference using the following procedure. Over a given time-step the
increment of n is
_

n ˆ n
t 26†

The new unit vector of the vector dps is

 nnew ˆ n ‡
n 27† Axi-symmetrical,
non-spherical
In order that nnew remains a unit vector, it is normalised to fix its magnitude to
unity as follows
particles
nnew ˆ Cosxnew i ‡ Cosynew j ‡ Cosznew k 28†

h i12 477
jnnew j ˆ Cos2xnew ‡ Cos2ynew ‡ Cos2znew 29†

giving normalised direction cosines

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cos xnew cos ynew cos znew

cos xN ˆ ; cos ynew ˆ and cos zN ˆ 30†
jnnew j jnnew j jnnew j

The new unit vector at the end of each time-step is now

nnew ˆ CosxN i ‡ CosyN j ‡ CoszN k 31†

and the new relative position vector for an element sphere s is given by
dps new ˆ dps nnew 32†

The global position vector of sphere s is then updated using equation (32)
rps new ˆ rp G† ‡ dps new 33†

The algorithm applies to each element sphere in a particle which may contain
any number of spheres. Completion of the update of the position and velocity of
each element sphere completes the calculation cycle for a particle over a single
time-step.

Examples
Examples of shapes which can be represented using this method are shown in
Figure 4. It can be seen that a wide range of shape representation is possible
including ellipsoid, cylindrical, and irregular axi-symmetric. The degree of
surface fitting depends on the number of element spheres used to create a
particle. Increasing the number of element spheres per particle will reduce
proportionally the overall number of particles which can handled within a
particular simulation using a given level of computing power. The choice of
number of element spheres will, therefore, depend on the application and the
desired approximation to actual particle shape. The degree of approximation to
the particle surface will govern the magnitude of the error in calculation of the
contact force vectors. Detailed analysis of the magnitude of maximum
deviation of contact normals from theoretical values for the true particle
surface, and methods for fitting spheres will be presented in a later paper.
Three examples of deposition under a gravity field of multi-element particles
in a box are shown in Figure 5. In the first case 200 simple two-element
 EC particles were created and randomly positioned in the box without overlapping.
16,4 A gravity field was then applied and particles allowed to move until they came
approximately to rest in the configuration as shown in Figure 5a. A similarly
generated assembly of 200 cylindrical 20-element particles with high aspect

(a) (b)
478
Figure 4.
Examples of multi-
element axi-symmetrical
particle shapes
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(a) tapered (30 element (c)

spheres); (b) irregular
(12 element spheres);
(c) cylindrical (20
element spheres);
(d) 1.3:1:1 ellipsoid (18 (d) (e)
element spheres) and
(e) 2:1:1 ellipsoid (28
element spheres)

(a) (b)

Figure 5.
(c)
Examples of multi-
element particle
assemblies after random
positioning and
deposition under a
gravity field; (a) 200
two-element particles;
(b) 200 20-element
cylindrical particles and
(c) 100 12-element
tapered particles
 ratio is shown in Figure 5b, while Figure 5c shows an assembly of 100 15- Axi-symmetrical,
element tapered (cone-shaped) particles. These examples indicate, at least non-spherical
qualitatively, the potential offered by the multi-element method for discrete particles
element modelling of assemblies of smooth surfaced particles with much
greater irregularity in shape than was previously possible.

Conclusions 479
A new method of representing non-spherical, smooth-surfaced, axi-
symmetrical particles in discrete element modelling has been presented.
Particles comprise overlapping spheres of arbitrary size whose centres are
fixed in position relative to each other along the major axis of symmetry of the
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 16:38 21 February 2015 (PT)

particle. Contact detection and calculation of force-deformation and particle

movement is achieved using standard DE techniques modified to integrate the
behaviour of each element sphere with that of the multi-element particle to
which it belongs. The use of spheres to represent a particle takes advantage of
the computational speed and accuracy of contact detection for spheres, which
should make the method comparable in computational efficiency to alternative
schemes for representing non-spherical particles.

References
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Graphics and Animation, Vol. 1, pp. 11-23.
Cundall, P.A. (1988a), ``Computer simulations of dense sphere assemblies'', in Satake, M. and
Jenkins, J.T. (Eds), Micromechanics of Granular Materials, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 113-
23.
Cundall, P.A. (1988b), ``Formulation of a three-dimensional distinct element model ± Part I. A
scheme to detect and represent contacts in a system composed of many polyhedral blocks'',
International Journal of Rock Mechanics, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 107-16.
Cundall, P.A. and Strack, O.D.L (1979), ``A discrete numerical method for granular assemblies'',
Geotechnique, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 47-65.
Cundall, P.A and Strack, O.L.D. (1983), ``Modelling of microscopic mechanisms in granular
material'', in Jenkins, J.T. and Satake, M. (Eds), Mechanics of Granular Materials: New
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