EDINBURGH, UK, July 24, 2018 – EDEM has released the latest version of its flagship software. EDEM 2018.2 introduces some new features and enhancements and continues to expand the capabilities of the GPU solver to pursue full parity between the CPU solver and the GPU solver. Here are the top 5 highlights of this release:
Creating Large Beds of Materials: Dynamic Domain on GPU
Introduced in EDEM 2018, the Dynamic Domain enables users to create an active domain to only solve contacts in necessary areas – making it possible to create large beds of material without increasing computational cost. This capability has proved successful particularly in agricultural and off-road vehicle applications where there is a need to create long beds of material. The Dynamic Domain is now available on GPU and functions the same way as it does for the CPU solver while delivering further increased performance.
To illustrate the performance gains which can be achieved, a simulation of an all-terrain vehicle using EDEM coupled with Adams multibody dynamics has been run with the GPU Solver while using Dynamic Domain. The end result is a fully-coupled 1,000,000 particle simulation which was calculated in just 3 hours, many times faster than what was possible with the previous generation of technology.
Simulating Powders: New Powders Starter Pack
Left – Mixing free flowing powder. Right – Mixing cohesive poor flowing powder.
Powders have complex and variable characteristics and choosing the right parameters, appropriate DEM physics model and the appropriate experimental validation can be a challenge and a genuine barrier for users looking to simulate such material.
The Powders Starter Pack is a new resource which has been designed to be a useful starting point for anyone needing to simulate the complex nature of powders. It consists of a selection of 9 example material models focusing on small particle sizes and representing a range of materials with different flow properties and compressibility – ready to select and use in EDEM.
More information about the Powders starter pack can be found in this blog post.
Contact Model Chaining
EDEM comes with a large number of built-in contact models which means users can represent a range of material behavior. The flexibility of the EDEM contact models has been further improved by modularizing each physics model so any combination of the existing models is now possible. The models can be ‘chained’ together so forces calculated by the first model are passed to the second model and so on. Contact models are now made up of “Base”, “Rolling Friction” and “Additional” models.
In the example shown below, this SAG mill demo is using the Hertz-Mindlin with JKR cohesion to represent the material, but also adding the additional Archard Wear Model to understand the wear on the mill liner (teeth).
More Physics Models on GPU
Following the introduction of the GPU solver engine back in EDEM 2017, additional EDEM functionality has been migrated to GPU to take advantage of increased performance for more users and application areas. With EDEM 2018.2 more contact models have been ported to the GPU solver to run natively on GPU hardware. This includes notably the Archard and Relative Wear Model which means users get access to the additional wear information at the same time as taking advantage of GPU performance.
Post-Processing Tools: Data Export for Particle Stress
The ability to analyze particle stress is useful when inspecting material beds to ensure consistent processing has been applied, regardless of whether this is for pre-processing a soil bed or analyzing powder compaction in pharmaceuticals. EDEM is now capable of calculating a stress tensor as well as von Mises stress. These options are now available for export in the EDEM Analyst.
EDEM users can find the full list of enhancements in the Release Notes available on the EDEM website.
About EDEM
First introduced to the market in 2006, EDEM software is used for ‘virtual testing’ of equipment that handles or processes bulk materials in the manufacturing of mining, construction, off-highway and agricultural machinery, as well as in the mining and process industries.
Blue-chip companies around the world use EDEM to optimize equipment design, increase productivity, reduce costs of operations, shorten product development cycles and drive product innovation. In addition, EDEM is used for research at over 200 academic institutions worldwide.
EDEM is a global company established in 2003 as DEM Solutions Ltd. and headquartered in Edinburgh, UK with offices in USA and Japan and supported by a network of channel partners in South America, South Africa and Asia-Pacific.
For more information, visit www.edemsimulation.com.
