TY  - EJOU
AU  - Zhao, Tingting 
AU  - Feng, Y. T. 
AU  - Zhang, Jie 
AU  - Wang, Zhihua 
AU  - Wang, Zhiyong 

TI  - Discrete Element Modelling of Dynamic Behaviour of Rockfills for Resisting High Speed Projectile Penetration
T2  - Computer Modeling in Engineering \& Sciences

PY  - 2021
VL  - 127
IS  - 2
SN  - 1526-1506

AB  - This paper presents a convex polyhedral based discrete element method for modelling the dynamic behaviour of rockfills for resisting high speed projectile penetration. The contact between two convex polyhedra is defined by the Minkowski overlap and determined by the GJK and EPA algorithm. The contact force is calculated by a Minkowski overlap based normal model. The rotational motion of polyhedral particles is solved by employing a quaternion based orientation representation scheme. The energy-conserving nature of the polyhedral DEM method ensures a robust and effective modelling of convex particle systems. The method is applied to simulate the dynamic behaviour of a rockfill system under impact of a high speed projectile. The rockfill sample is generated by a three-dimensional Voronoi meso method with a specific particle size distribution. The penetrating process of the projectile striking the rockfill target is simulated. Some physical quantities associated with the projectile such as the residual velocity, penetration resistance, and deflection angle are monitored which can reflect the influence of the characteristics of the rockfill target on its anti-penetration performance. It can be concluded that the developed polyhedral DEM method is a very promising numerical approach in analysing the dynamic behaviour of rockfill systems subject to high speed projectile impact.
KW  - Discrete element method; minkowski overlap; polyhedral particles; rockfill protection system; high speed projectile penetration

DO  - 10.32604/cmes.2021.015913