Methodology for Simulation of Irregularly Shaped Gravel Grains and Its Application to DEM Modeling

The mechanical behaviors of gravelly sands are greatly affected by the morphology and size of gravel grains. In this paper, a systematic approach that integrated computational geometry was proposed to simulate gravel grains with different angularity and aspect ratio in discrete element method (DEM) modeling. A random circumscribed polygon was first created, and disks of different sizes were laid along medial axes of the polygon. This...