DEM-ClumpedSphere

An algorithm to generate clumped-sphere approximation of non-spherical particles from particle STL files (X-ray micortomography, Selective Electron Microscopy etc), to be use in Discrete Element Simulations.

If any publication is resulted from using this code, please cite:

1. Optimisation of blade type spreaders for powder bed preparation in additive manufacturing using DEM simulations S. Haeri Powder Technology Vol 321, pp. 94-104, (2017) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2017.08.011

Installation

No installation is required, however, the code relies on the following two libraries

1. Ray/Triangle Intersection version 1.0 (https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/profile/authors/1927554-jesus-p-mena-chalco)
2. Stl volume calculation versio 1.0 (https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/26982-volume-of-a-surface-triangulation) Important
   This function relies on an epsilon value set on the first line as epsilon = 0.00001; However, this is not accurate enough for this application, So you need to modify the definition of the function rayTriangleIntersection by adding another argument myEps (as the last) and set epsilon = myEps
3. stlTools version 1.1 (https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/profile/authors/402762-pau-mico)

Features

1. Can write the clumped-sphere assembly in TECPLOT format for visualisation.
2. Outputs the moment of inertia, volume of the assembly and the errors by comparing to direct MC calculations (this is time consuming).
3. Writes Lammps templates of the assembly.
4. Possibility to control surface features, (if using large smoothing a rescaling of the sphere diameters may be required, see the paper for a discussion.