Development of a Coupled LBM-DEM Model for Off-road Mobility

Jelinek, B. (2018). Development of a Coupled LBM-DEM Model for Off-road Mobility. The International Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Technology (ISAVT). Illertissen, Germany.

Physically-accurate model of a wheel in off-road terrain needs to account for interactions between fluid, particles, and a wheel object. This presentation describes the development of a large scale parallel numerical model aiming to characterize mechanics of wheel in off-road environment. Fluid solver is based on the lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM). Interaction between solid particles is represented by the discrete element method (DEM). Interaction between fluid and particles uses immersed moving boundary method. Parallelization techniques and corresponding speedup for individual subsystems is shown. Validation test case of particle sedimentation is presented, followed by examples of micromechanical study of shear-thickening and simulation of calibration-chamber cone penetration test.