Development and validation of SuperDEM for non-spherical particulate systems using a superquadric particle method--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Gao, X., Yu, J., Portal, R. J. F., Dietiker, J.-F., Shahnam, M., & Rogers, W. A. (2022). Development and validation of SuperDEM for non-spherical particulate systems using a superquadric particle method. Particuology, 61, 74-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2020.11.007

Development and validation of SuperDEM for non-spherical particulate systems using a superquadric particle method

Xi Gao ^{a b *}, Jia Yu ^a, Ricardo J.F. Portal ^{c d}, Jean-François Dietiker ^a^b, Mehrdad Shahnam ^a, William A. Rogers ^a

a National Energy Technology Laboratory, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
b Leidos Research Support Team, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
c Centro de Investigação em Modelação e Otimização de Sistemas Multifuncionais, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, 1959-007 Lisboa, Portugal
d Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica – Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

10.1016/j.partic.2020.11.007

Volume 61, February 2022, Pages 74-90

Received 28 July 2020, Revised 13 October 2020, Accepted 13 November 2020, Available online 13 January 2021, Version of Record 27 October 2021.

E-mail: xi.gao@netl.doe.gov

Highlights

• A SuperDEM solver was developed for non-spherical particulate systems.

• A contact algorithm with accelerating and stabilizing strategy was developed.

• A particle-arbitrary wall contact algorithm using an STL method was developed.

• SuperDEM was validated in different particulate systems.

• Solver was MPI parallelled and100 million particles were simulated on 6800 cores.

Abstract

This article presents the development and validation of the Superquadric Discrete Element Method (SuperDEM) for non-spherical particle simulation using a superquadric particle method in open-source CFD suite MFiX. A superquadric particle–particle contact algorithm with accelerating and stabilizing strategy was developed. A superquadric particle–arbitrary wall contact algorithm was developed, which enables the simulation in complex geometry. The solver was validated by comparing with experimental data generated in this study or available in the literature. Tests include cylinder contacting with a wall, static packing of M&M chocolate candies in a cylindrical container, static packing of cylinders in a cylindrical container, dynamic angle of repose of cylinders in a rotating drum, and discharging of chocolate candies from a hopper. Besides, MPI parallelization of the solver was implemented and the parallel performance of the solver using MPI was assessed through large-scale simulations of 1 million, 10 million, and 100 million particles on up to 6800 cores, which demonstrates that the SuperDEM solver has great potential for industrial-scale systems simulation.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

DEM; Particle; Non-spherical; Superquadric; Parallelization; MFiX

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