Impact of numerical models on fragmentation processes

International audienceSimulated fragmentation process in granular assemblies is a challenging problem which date back the beginning of the 90′. If first approaches have focus on the fragmentation on a single particle, with the development of robust, fast numerical method is is possible today to simulated such process in a large collection of particles. But the question of the fragmentation problem is still open: should the fragmentation be done dynamically (one particle becoming two fragments) and according which criterion or should the fragment paths be defined initially and which is the impact of the discretization and the model of fragments? The present contribution proposes to investigate the second aspect i.e. the impact of fragment modeling on the fragmentation processes. First to perform such an analysis, the geometry of fragments (disks/sphere or polygon/polyhedra), their behavior (rigid/deformable) and the law governing their interactions are investigated. Then such model will be used in a grinding application where the evolution of fragments and impact on the behavior of the whole packing are investigat