StarDEM: Efficient Discrete Element Method for Star-shaped Particles

Abstract

Granular materials composed of particles with complex shapes are challenging to simulate due to the high number of collisions between the particles. In this context, star shapes are promising: they cover a wide range of geometries from convex to concave and have interesting geometric properties. We propose an efficient method to simulate a large number of identical star-shaped particles. Our method relies on an effective approximation of the contacts between particles that can handle complex shapes, including highly non-convex ones. We demonstrate our method by implementing it in a 2D simulation using the Discrete Element Method, both on the CPU and GPU.