A unified numerical framework for rigid and compliant granular materials

A numerical framework for the simulation of granular materials composed of mixed rigid and compliant grains is presented in this paper. This approach is based on a multibody meshfree technique, coupled in a very natural way with classic concepts from the discrete element method. The equations of motion (for the rigid grains) and of continuum mechanics (for the compliant ones) are solved using an adaptive explicit scheme, in fully dynamic conditions. The parallelization strategy is described and tested on an illustrative simulation involving both kinds of grains.