Abstract
As computational expense decreases Discrete Element Method (DEM) has increased in popularity as a tool to model granular material. Unfortunately wide spread access to DEM software is still an issue, as many researchers in academia and industry simply do not have access to proprietary software packages, including the author of this paper. Thus the importance of verifying open-source packages for their legitimacy relative to their proprietary counterparts. Thus the scope of this paper is to further validate two open-source packages, Yet Another Dynamic Engine (Yade) and Project Chrono, are capable of generating reliable results.
Yade and Project Chrono were evaluated against a series of established particle level impact benchmark modeling cases (e.g., between two spheres or a sphere and rigid wall). These cases were designed to evaluate elastic normal impacts, energy dissipation for normal impacts, and energy dissipation due to oblique impacts. In addition each test case was investigated twice implementing a change in material properties on the second simulation. Many of the resulting forces, moments, and accelerations were found to agree with theoretical solutions and/or proprietary software model results published in the existing literature [1]. The discrepancies are still under investigation. These open source software packages are found to have advantages that are useful in an university research or an industrial environment.
