On the computational aspects of comminution in discrete element method

In this paper, computational aspects of crushing/comminution of granular materials are addressed. For crushing, maximum tensile stress-based criterion is used. Crushing model in discrete element method (DEM) is prone to problems of mass conservation and reduction in critical time step. The first problem is addressed by using an iterative scheme which, depending on geometric voids, recovers mass of a particle. In addition, a global–local framework for DEM problem is proposed which tends to alleviate the local unstable motion of particles and increases the computational efficiency.