1,828 research outputs found
Creep stability of the proposed AIDA mission target 65803 Didymos: I. Discrete cohesionless granular physics model
As the target of the proposed Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA)
mission, the near-Earth binary asteroid 65803 Didymos represents a special
class of binary asteroids, those whose primaries are at risk of rotational
disruption. To gain a better understanding of these binary systems and to
support the AIDA mission, this paper investigates the creep stability of the
Didymos primary by representing it as a cohesionless self-gravitating granular
aggregate subject to rotational acceleration. To achieve this goal, a
soft-sphere discrete element model (SSDEM) capable of simulating granular
systems in quasi-static states is implemented and a quasi-static spin-up
procedure is carried out. We devise three critical spin limits for the
simulated aggregates to indicate their critical states triggered by reshaping
and surface shedding, internal structural deformation, and shear failure,
respectively. The failure condition and mode, and shear strength of an
aggregate can all be inferred from the three critical spin limits. The effects
of arrangement and size distribution of constituent particles, bulk density,
spin-up path, and interparticle friction are numerically explored. The results
show that the shear strength of a spinning self-gravitating aggregate depends
strongly on both its internal configuration and material parameters, while its
failure mode and mechanism are mainly affected by its internal configuration.
Additionally, this study provides some constraints on the possible physical
properties of the Didymos primary based on observational data and proposes a
plausible formation mechanism for this binary system. With a bulk density
consistent with observational uncertainty and close to the maximum density
allowed for the asteroid, the Didymos primary in certain configurations can
remain geo-statically stable without including cohesion.Comment: 66 pages, 24 figures, submitted to Icarus on 25/Aug/201
The effects of packing structure on the effective thermal conductivity of granular media: A grain scale investigation
Structural characteristics are considered to be the dominant factors in
determining the effective properties of granular media, particularly in the
scope of transport phenomena. Towards improved heat management, thermal
transport in granular media requires an improved fundamental understanding. In
this study, the effects of packing structure on heat transfer in granular media
are evaluated at macro- and grain-scales. At the grain-scale, a gas-solid
coupling heat transfer model is adapted into a discrete-element-method to
simulate this transport phenomenon. The numerical framework is validated by
experimental data obtained using a plane source technique, and the
Smoluschowski effect of the gas phase is found to be captured by this
extension. By considering packings of spherical SiO2 grains with an
interstitial helium phase, vibration induced ordering in granular media is
studied, using the simulation methods developed here, to investigate how
disorder-to-order transitions of packing structure enhance effective thermal
conductivity. Grain-scale thermal transport is shown to be influenced by the
local neighbourhood configuration of individual grains. The formation of an
ordered packing structure enhances both global and local thermal transport.
This study provides a structure approach to explain transport phenomena, which
can be applied in properties modification for granular media.Comment: 11 figures, 29 page
A study of fragmentation processes using a discrete element method
We present a model of solids made from polygonal cells connected via beams.
We calculate the macroscopic elastic moduli from the beam and cell parameters.
This modellisation is particularly suited for the simulation of fragmentation
processes. We study the effects of an explosion inside a circular disk and the
impact of a projectile and obtain the fragment size distribution. We find that
if breaking only happens under tensile forces a layer on the free wall opposed
to impact is first ejected. In that case the distribution follows a power-law
with an exponent that in most cases is around two.Comment: 16 pages in LaTex format, 17 PostScript figures. Figures are
available upon request from the authors. Submitted to Int. J. of Mod. Phys.
Molecular dynamics simulations of complex shaped particles using Minkowski operators
The Minkowski operators (addition and substraction of sets in vectorial
spaces) has been extensively used for Computer Graphics and Image Processing to
represent complex shapes. Here we propose to apply those mathematical concepts
to extend the Molecular Dynamics (MD) Methods for simulations with
complex-shaped particles. A new concept of Voronoi-Minkowski diagrams is
introduced to generate random packings of complex-shaped particles with tunable
particle roundness. By extending the classical concept of Verlet list we
achieve numerical efficiencies that do not grow quadratically with the body
number of sides. Simulations of dissipative granular materials under shear
demonstrate that the method complies with the first law of thermodynamics for
energy balance.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Lattice Element Method and its application to Multiphysics
In this thesis, a Lattice element modelling method is developed and is applied to model the loose and cemented, natural and artificial, granular matters subject to thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled loading conditions. In lattice element method, the lattice nodes which can be considered as the centres of the unit cells, are connected by cohesive links, such as spring beams that can carry normal and shear forces, bending and torsion moment. For the heat transfer due to conduction, the cohesive links are also used to carry heat as 1D pipes, and the physical properties of these rods are computed based on the Hertz contact model. The hydro part is included with the pore network modelling scheme. The voids are inscribed with the pore nodes and connected with throats, and then the meso level flow equation is solved. The Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beams are chosen as the cohesive links or the lattice elements, while the latter should be used when beam elements are short and deep. This property becomes interesting in modelling auxetic materials. The model is applied to study benchmarks in geotechnical engineering. For heat transfer in the dry and full range of saturation, and fractures in the cemented granular media.How through porous media failure behaviours of rocks at high temperature and pressure and granular composites subjected to coupled Thermo hydro Mechanical loads. The model is further extended to capture the wave motion in the heterogeneous granular matter, and a few case studies for the wavefield modification with existing cracks are presented. The developed method is capable of capturing the complex interaction of crack wave interaction with relative ease and at a substantially less computational cost
Determining Cosserat constants of 2D cellular solids from beam models
We present results of a two-scale model of disordered cellular materials
where we describe the microstructure in an idealized manner using a beam
network model and then make a transition to a Cosserat-type continuum model
describing the same material on the macroscopic scale. In such scale
transitions, normally either bottom-up homogenization approaches or top-down
reverse modelling strategies are used in order to match the macro-scale
Cosserat continuum to the micro-scale beam network. Here we use a different
approach that is based on an energetically consistent continuization scheme
that uses data from the beam network model in order to determine continuous
stress and strain variables in a set of control volumes defined on the scale of
the individual microstructure elements (cells) in such a manner that they form
a continuous tessellation of the material domain. Stresses and strains are
determined independently in all control volumes, and constitutive parameters
are obtained from the ensemble of control volume data using a least-square
error criterion. We show that this approach yields material parameters that are
for regular honeycomb structures in close agreement with analytical results.
For strongly disordered cellular structures, the thus parametrized Cosserat
continuum produces results that reproduce the behavior of the micro-scale beam
models both in view of the observed strain patterns and in view of the
macroscopic response, including its size dependence
Microcracking in piezoelectric materials by the Boundary Element Method
A 3D boundary element model for piezoelectric polycrystalline micro-cracking is discussed in this contribution. The model is based on the boundary integral representation of the electro-mechanical behavior of individual grains and on the use of a generalized cohesive formulation for inter-granular micro-cracking. The boundary integral formulation allows to address the electro-mechanical boundary value problem in terms of generalized grain boundary and inter-granular displacements and tractions only, which implies the natural inclusion of the cohesive laws in the formulation, the simplification of the analysis pre-processing stage, and the reduction of the number of degrees of freedom of the overall analysis with respect to other popular numerical methods
Pore-scale Modeling of Viscous Flow and Induced Forces in Dense Sphere Packings
We propose a method for effectively upscaling incompressible viscous flow in
large random polydispersed sphere packings: the emphasis of this method is on
the determination of the forces applied on the solid particles by the fluid.
Pore bodies and their connections are defined locally through a regular
Delaunay triangulation of the packings. Viscous flow equations are upscaled at
the pore level, and approximated with a finite volume numerical scheme. We
compare numerical simulations of the proposed method to detailed finite element
(FEM) simulations of the Stokes equations for assemblies of 8 to 200 spheres. A
good agreement is found both in terms of forces exerted on the solid particles
and effective permeability coefficients
3D Voronoi Tessellation for the Study of Mechanical Behavior of Rocks at Different Scales
Numerical investigation of crack damage development and microfracturing in brittle rocks is a widely studied topic, given the number of applications involved. In the framework of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) formulation, the grain-based distinct element model with random polygonal blocks can represent an alternative to the Bonded-Particle Model (BPM) based on particles. Recently, a new engine called Neper has been made available for generating 3D Voronoi grains. The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of a Neper-based 3D Voronoi tessellation technique for the simulation of the mechanical macro response of rocks. Simulation of unconfined compression tests on synthetic specimens is conducted and a calibration procedure tested. The issue related to scale effects is also addressed, with an application to the case study of a deep geothermal reservoir
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