how to build a flexible body model

bai

Hi Everyone,

I want to build a long flexible body model, where the particles that make up the flexible body only form bond connections with adjacent particles. The main factors affecting the fracture of the long flexible body are the contact radius, normal strength, and shear strength (the values of normal strength and shear strength are already set high enough). When I continuously increase the contact radius so that it is greater than the particle diameter, the particles will form bond connections with all the particles within the contact radius, which contradicts the previous condition of only connecting bonds with adjacent particles. The current issue is that when the contact radius is smaller than the particle diameter, the long flexible body is prone to fracture, and when the contact radius is larger than the particle diameter, extra bond connections are formed. My requirement is to establish a long flexible body that will bend without breaking, where the particles only form bond connections with adjacent particles. Do you have any good suggestions?

Best regards,

Bai

Stephen Cole

Hi Bai,

In EDEM 2025 and later there is a 'preserve contact' function. This means that for models which support this function we only use the contact radius to detect the initial contact, then the particles will retain contact even if there is no overlap, until the contact (or bond in this case) is broken.

In the current 2025 (.0) release only Linear Elastic bonding makes us of this functionality, although you can also implement an API version of a bonded model with it, which would mean you can technically make unbreakable bonds.

Regards

Stephen