Linear (Cundall) contact model¶
Linear contact model is widely used throughout the DEM field and was first published in [CS79]. Normal force is linear function of normal displacement (=overlap); shear force increases linearly with relative shear displacement, but is limited by Coulomb linear friciton. This model is implemented in woo.dem.Law2_L6Geom_FrictPhys_IdealElPl
.
Stiffness¶

Fig. 13 Series of 2 springs representing normal stiffness of contact between 2 spheres.¶
Normal stiffness is related to Young modulus
of both particles’ materials. For clarity, we define contact area
of a fictious “connector” between spheres of total length \(l=l_1+l_2\). These effective lengths
are equal to radii for spheres (but have other values for e.g. walls
or facets
– see below), minus the initial overlap. The contact area is
where \(l_i\) is (equivalent – for non-spheres) radius the respective particle. The connector is therefore an imaginary cylinder with radius of the lesser sphere, spanning between their centers. Its stiffness
is then
Tangent (shear) stiffness \(k_t\) is a fraction (ktDivKn
) of \(k_n\),
where the ratio is averaged between both materials in contact.
Friction angle
on the contact is computed from contacting materials as
(unless specified otherwise
) of which consequence is that material without friction will not have frictional contacts, regardless of friction of the other material.
Note
It is a simplification to derive friction parameters from material properties – the interface of each couple of materials might have different parameters, though this simplification is mostly sufficient in the practice. If you need to define different parameters for every combination of material instances, there is the woo.core.MatchMaker
infrastructure.
Non-spherical particles¶
The formulas for spheres above suppose that there is particle radius (radius
) which defines mechanically active length (between contact point and centroid) where the material deforms (\(l_1\), \(l_2\)). This is generalized for contact of non-spherical particles, but there are often choices which have to balance computing performance, (somewhat subjective) intuition and (perceived) physical correctness.
The rules for determining \(l_i\) are the following:
Round particles contacting between themselves (including
Facet
with non-zerohalfThick
use their natural radii:Sphere.radius
,Facet.halfThick
,Capsule.radius
,InfCylidner.radius
, computed centroid – contact point distance forEllipsoid
).Flat particles (
Wall
orFacet
with zerohalfThick
) use the other’s particle radius – this results in the same influence on contact parameters from both particles, which accounts for local (not simulated) deformation of those flat particles.
Contact of 2 flat particles is undefined.
These rules are implemented in Cp2_ functors
for respective shape combinations, and are passed as parameters to Cg2_Any_Any_L6Geom__Base::handleSpheresLikeContact
and to Cp2_FrictMat_FrictPhys::updateFrictPhys
in turn. Refer to their source code for details.
Examples¶
Capsule
in contact withSphere
, with\begin{align*} r_1&=.2\,\mathrm{m}, & r_2&=.1\,\mathrm{m}, \\ u_N&=.001\,\mathrm{m}, \\ E_1&=10\,\mathrm{MPa}, & E_2&=30\,\mathrm{MPa}, \\ l_1&=r_1-\frac{u_N}{2}, & l_2&=\frac{u_N}{2}, \\ A&=\pi\min(l_1,l_2)^2, \\ \end{align*}lead to equivalent modulus and stiffness:
\begin{align*} \frac{l}{E'}&=\frac{l_1+l_2}{E'}=\frac{l_1}{E_1}+\frac{l_2}{E_2}, \\ k_n=\frac{E'A}{l}&=A\left(\frac{l_1}{E_1}+\frac{l_2}{E_2}\right)^{-1} \end{align*}Woo[1]: r1,r2=.2,.1; uN=-.001; E1,E2=10e6,30e6 Woo[2]: S1=Scene(fields=[DemField(par=[Capsule.make((0,0,0),radius=r1,shaft=.1,mat=FrictMat(young=E1)),Sphere.make((0,0,r1+r2+uN),radius=r2,mat=FrictMat(young=E2))])],engines=DemField.minimalEngines()) Woo[3]: S1.one(); c=S1.dem.con[0] # one step to create contact Woo[4]: c.geom.lens, c.geom.contA, c.phys.kn Out[4]: (Vector2(0.1,0.2), 0.031415926535897934, 1346396.8515384828) # recompute by hand to check: Woo[5]: l1,l2=r1+uN/2.,r2+uN/2.; A=pi*min(l1,l2)**2 # l1,l2 swapped above since the functor Cg2_Sphere_Capsule_L6Geom reorders the contact Woo[6]: (l2,l1), A, A*(l1/E1+l2/E2)**-1 Out[6]: ((0.0995, 0.1995), 0.031102552668702352, 1336785.9313195853)
thin
Facet
(with \(h=0\) ashalfThick
) in contact withSphere
, with\begin{align*} h&=0\,\mathrm{m}, & r&=.1\,\mathrm{m}, \\ u_N&=.001\,\mathrm{m}, \\ E_1&=10\,\mathrm{MPa}, & E_2&=30\,\mathrm{MPa}, \\ l_1&=\max(h,r)-\frac{u_N}{2}, & l_2&=r-\frac{u_N}{2}, \\ A&=\pi\min(l_1,l_2)^2 \end{align*}Woo[7]: h,r=0,.1; uN=-.001; E1,E2=10e6,30e6; Woo[8]: S2=Scene(fields=[DemField(par=[Facet.make([(0,0,0),(1,0,0),(0,1,0)],halfThick=h,mat=FrictMat(young=E1)),Sphere.make((.2,.2,h+r+uN),radius=r,mat=FrictMat(young=E2))])],engines=DemField.minimalEngines()) Woo[9]: S2.one(); c=S2.dem.con[0] # one step to create contact Woo[10]: c.geom.lens, c.geom.contA, c.phys.kn Out[10]: (Vector2(0.1,0.1), 0.031415926535897934, 2356194.4901923453) # hand-computation Woo[11]: l1,l2=max(h,r)+uN/2.,r+uN/2.; A=pi*min(l1,l2)**2 Woo[12]: (l1,l2), A, A*(l1/E1+l2/E2)**-1 Out[12]: ((0.0995, 0.0995), 0.031102552668702352, 2344413.5177413835)
Warning
The above does not match?! Should be tracked down.
Contact respose¶
Normal response is computed from the normal displacement
(or overlap) as
and the contact is (optionally
) broken when \(u_n>0\).
Trial tangential force is computed from tangential relative velocity
\(\dot u\) incrementally and finally (optionally
) reduced by the coulomb Criterion. Tangential force is a 2-vector along contact-local \(y\) and \(z\) axes.
and total tangential force is reduced by the Coulomb criterion:
Energy balance¶
Elastic potential stored in a contact is the contact is the triangular area below the displacement-force diagram, in both normal and tangent sense,
Plastically dissipated energy is the elastic energy removed by the tangent slip. Noting \(f_y=F_n\tan\phi\) (yield force magnitude), and norm of the trial tangent force \(f_t=|\curr{\vec{F}_t}+\Delta\vec{F}_t|\), this energy can be seen as the red area (parallelogram) in the displacement-force diagram