A two-scale contact model for collisions between blocks in CDEM

Abstract

Contact detection between interacting blocks is of great importance to discontinuity-based numerical methods, such as DDA, DEM, and NMM. A rigorous contact theory is a prerequisite to describing the interactions of multiple blocks. Currently, the penalty method, in which mathematical springs with high stiffness values are employed, is always used to calculate the contact forces. High stiffness values may cause numerical oscillations and limit the time step. Furthermore, their values are difficult to identify. The intention of this study is to present a two-scale contact model for the calculation of forces between colliding blocks. In this new model, a calculation step taken from the moment of contact will be divided into two time stages: the free motion time stage and the contact time stage. Actually, these two time stages correspond to two real physical processes. Based on this, we present a new numerical model that is intended to be more precise and useful in calculating the contact forces without mathematical springs. The propagation of the elastic wave during collision is of a characteristic length, which determines the volume of material involved in the contact force calculation. In conventional contact models, this range is always regarded as the length of one element, which may lead to an inaccurate calculation of contact forces. In fact, the real scale of this range is smaller than the length of a single element, and subdivided elements, which are refined according to the characteristic length and are presented in the new contact model.