Convergence and stability analysis of the deformable discrete element method

摘要

This work investigates numerical properties of the algorithm of the discrete element method (DEM) employing deformable circular disks presented in the authors' earlier publication. The new formulation called the deformable DEM (DDEM) enhances the standard DEM (SDEM) by introducing an additional (global) deformation mode caused by the stresses in the particles induced by the contact forces. An accurate computation of the contact forces would require an iterative solution of the implicit relationship between the contact forces and particle displacements. In order to preserve efficiency of the DEM, the new formulation has been adapted to the explicit time integration. It has been shown that the explicit DDEM algorithm is conditionally stable and there are two restrictions on its stability. Except for the limitation of the time step as in the SDEM, the stability in the DDEM is governed by the convergence criterion of the iterative solution of the contact forces. The convergence and stability limits have been determined analytically and numerically for selected regular and irregular configurations. It has also been found out that the critical time step in DDEM remains unchanged with respect to the SDEM.