Granular material exhibits a wide range of interesting fundamental behavior; understanding these properties is of primary importance in numerous engineering research areas and industrial applications. A variety of methodologies, based on both continuum and discrete approaches, have been developed to simulate numerically the diverse behavior of granular material, from the molecular to the macroscopic levels. In particular, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is increasingly being employed in a wide range of industrial fields, from civil engineering to materials science.
At EPFL, research is undertaken in the development of advanced physical modeling and numerical algorithms, and their use to provide increased understanding of the fundamental behavior of granular materials as well as their application for the analysis of complex granular flows and granular materials. Specific STI and ENAC laboratories involved in Computational Granular Dynamics activities include:
- Computational Granular Dynamics Group (Dr Mark Sawley)
- LMR – Rock Mechanics Laboratory (Prof. Jian Zhao)
- LSMS – Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory (Prof. Jean-François Molinari)
