Challenges of Applying Discrete Element Method (DEM) to Industrial Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Granular materials are widely encountered in various industries such as pharmaceutical, chemical, mining and agriculture. The efficient handling of granular materials is an ongoing challenge due to the very complex nature of particles/powders. Normally, experimental methods are utilized to investigate the behaviour of granular materials under different conditions. Experiments, however, could be costly, resource-intensive and wasteful. The limitations associated with experimental techniques have paved the way for the discrete element method (DEM) approach to become a valuable tool for studying particle/powder behaviour. Due to the advances in computational facilities in the last few years, the use of the DEM approach has rapidly grown across a range of industries that use granular materials and powders. The popularity of this method stems from its ability to reveal a comprehensive, particle level of information, which is hard or even impossible to obtain through experiments. Although commonly employed in both academia and industry, this method is still not as developed as other simulation techniques used to simulate fluid or structures. Variable physical characteristics (e.g., particle shape), particle size, particle cohesion, computational time, the calibration of input parameters, and validation of DEM results are among the challenges faced by DEM users, hindering the use of this simulation technique.

This Special Issue aims to cover current research on the following topics:

• Novel developments in modelling complex interactions at a particle level such as cohesion;
• Innovative approaches regarding DEM model calibration for static and dynamic systems;
• The application of the coarse graining approach and GPU to reduce DEM simulation time;
• Novel validation techniques;
• Usefulness of DEM to provide answers to fundamental questions and innovative solutions to industrial problems.

Research and review articles, and communications related to the above topics are invited for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Farhad Ein-Mozaffari
Dr. Mohammadreza Ebrahimi
Dr. Subhash Thakur
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.