A 2D hysteretic DEM model for arbitrarily shaped polygonal particles
Dolf J. Klomp, Martien A. Hulsen, Patrick D. Anderson
Abstract
A 2D hysteretic Discrete Element Method (DEM) model is developed for simulating the flow of food particles, specifically with multi-material 3D food printing processes in mind. Particles are modeled as arbitrarily shaped polygons due to the diverse nature of food powders, which can be highly irregular in shape. The developed hysteretic force model is applicable to both convex and concave polygonal particles. It is adjusted to use a proportional weighted maximum intersection area upon splitting of contact areas. This results in a continuous force trajectory, which would otherwise not be guaranteed. The model is validated with in literature reported packing ratios for ellipses. Simulated deposition of sugar-shaped particles shows that for dense packings the fraction of splitting interactions occurring can be up to 7%. Furthermore, the influence of particle shape on the coordination number and packing density is shown with a simulation of the deposition of sugar-like material.