A Contact Dynamics open source code for the simulation of granular asteroid with realistic regolith shapes. Application to the accretion process

Abstract

Granular asteroids are naturally occurring gravitational aggregates (rubble piles) bound together by gravitational forces. For this reason, it is reasonable to use the theoretical concepts and numerical tools developed for granular media to study them. In this paper, we extend the field of applicability of the Contact Dynamic (CD) method, a class of non-smooth discrete element approach, for the simulation of three-dimensional granular asteroids. The CD method is particularly relevant to address the study of dense granular assemblies of a large number of particles of complex shape and broad particles size distribution since it does not introduces numerical artefacts due to contact stiffness. We describe how the open-source software LMGC90, interfaced with an external library for the calculation of self-gravity, is used to model the accretion process of spherical and irregular polyhedral particles.