RBSM

Hi,

for the first part: given that a quick search for "Rigid Body Spring Method" or "RBSM" doesn't bring up anything specific enough to judge how this is related / differs from a standard DEM approach, could you point me to a suitable reference paper?
as for any other software: no idea.

Steffen

Dear Steffen,

Thanks a lot for your attention.
RBSM, as I know, firstly proposed by Kawai in 1977.
This discrete model has advantages to show the cracking in materials like concrete, which eventually causes failure. Previous researchers have used RBSM to simulate the concrete materials under static loads (Nagai et al. 2004), fatigue loads (Matsumoto et al. 2008) and also the mechanical properties of frost damaged concrete (Ueda et al. 2009).

Here is some related papers:

1.Kawai, T., (1977). “New element models in discrete structure analysis.” Journal of Society of Naval Architectures of Japan, 141, 187-193.
2.Nagai, K., Sato, Y. and Ueda, T., (2004). “Mesoscopic simulation of failure of mortar and concrete by 2D RBSM.” Journal of Advanced Concrete Technology, 2(3), 359-374.
3.Matsumoto, K., Sato, Y., Ueda, T. and Wang, L., (2008).“Mesoscopic analysis of mortar under high-stress creep and low-cycle fatigue loading.” Journal of Advanced Concrete Technology, 6(2), 337-352.
4.Ueda, T., Hasan, M., Nagai, K., Sato, Y. and Wang, L., (2009). “Mesoscale simulation of influence of frost damage on mechanical properties of concrete.”Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 21,244-252.
5.Gong, F., (2015), Modeling and Simulation of Frost Damage of Concrete and its Combined Effect with Fatigue Loadings, Ph.D. thesis, Hokkaido University.

Hi,

after reading the Nagai et al. paper mentioned above it appears to me that a (the?) key difference between the RBSM and a standard DEM with bonded particles is that in RBSM the particles are polyhedra instead of circles / spheres. In this case ESyS-Particle does _not_ support RBSM as described by Nagai et al. due to the fact that the particles in ESyS-Particle are always circlular (2D) or spherical (3D).

Steffen