DemLab

Within the DEMlab @ TU Delft, we do the following:

• We focus on the application, validation and calibration of Discrete Element Method ( DEM ) as a design tool in order to have more efficient and sustainable machinery with less energy consumption, maintenance costs and environmental pressure. So far many researchers develop and use DEM as a design tool, however its validation is underexposed.
• We characterize material properties and validate DEM models by both laboratory experiments as well as experiments on industrial scale.
•  We design and evaluate equipment based on our expertise of material characterization, DEM validation and equipment design.

 Our laboratory facilities (DEMlab) consists of both physical setups and virtual setups (or simulation environment using DEM). Most of our work requires a combination of physical experiments and simulations.

Available simulation software

We simulate particulate systems by using:

• EDEM^TM
• LIGGGHTS (open source)

We perform co-simulation with Multi Body Dynamics (MBD) to include the dynamic response of  equipment with:

• EDEM^TM – ADAMS^TM

For modelling interaction between particles and fluids and gasses we perform co-simulation with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) using:

• EDEM^TM coupled with FLUENT®
• LIGGGHTS coupled with OpenFoam by CFDEM (open source)