The alternative to a continuum model of granular media (see other chapters in this book) is to view the material as a collection of discrete particles. In order to simplify the description, we assume the particles to be spheres in the following. For the characterization of a system with many particles we specify only two-particle interactions, assuming many-body interactions to result from the sum of the two-particle forces. The scope of this chapter is to give a summary of frequently used approaches and to compare them.
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