2016 Volume 33 Pages 169-178
In this paper, we describe an industrial application of the discrete element method (DEM). The DEM has been applied to various powder systems thus far and therefore appears to be an established approach. However, it cannot be applied to many industrial systems because of several critical problems such as modeling of large-scale simulations, complexly shaped wall boundaries and free surface fluid flow. To solve these problems, novel models were developed by our group. A coarse-grain DEM model was developed for large-scale simulations, a signed distance function-based wall boundary model was developed for complexly shaped walls and a DEM-moving particle semi-implicit method was developed for solid-liquid flow involving a free surface. The adequacy of these models was demonstrated through verification and validation tests. Our approach shows promise in industrial applications.
