BCS Edinburgh Branch

Discrete Element Modelling of Particulate Systems

Wednesday 5th December 2007, 6:30 pm

Speaker: John Favier, DEM Solutions Ltd.

Venue: The Royal Scots Club Hepburn Suite, 30 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE - map and direction.

This talk is free of charge and no reservation is required. Non members are most welcome. Refreshments available from 6:10 pm.

Synopsis

Use of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software for simulation of the performance of equipment and processes is now widespread in industry. Parallel computing on cluster hardware and, more recently, on multi-processor and multi-core desktop hardware, is increasing the scale and complexity of CAE simulations routinely carried out by engineers in industry. It is also expanding the range of modelling techniques employed in commercial CAE software to include those previously limited by computing power to applied research. One of the foremost of these techniques is the Discrete Element Method (DEM) which is a particle-based technique employing an explicit Lagrangian solution, well suited to parallel computing.

The DEM is now being used in the design and optimization of particulate handling and processing operations such as conveying, mixing, blending and coating of materials such as powder, pills, pellets, granules, food, soil and rock aggregates. The speaker will review the principles of DEM and illustrate the wide range of industrial application. The talk will examine the advantages of particle-based methods for modelling of discontinuous media and also look at development of coupled discrete-continuum methods for multi-physics simulation.

About the speaker