Undoubtedly the most frustrating part about using DEM technology is finding the material properties to accurately simulate your material. It's also the part that introduces the greatest uncertainty. Here at Applied DEM™, we aim to make this process as simple and confident as possible. That's why we created Material Characterization Simulations for Bulk Flow Analyst™ to help our users define better material properties the first time.
Before material characterization simulations, setting adequate material properties was a complex process of setting up and running tests to mimic observable behavior. Users would compare the results of these simulations to real world results, then tweak the properties and run the tests all over again! BFA takes care of this with material characterization simulations by running several simple tests, constantly comparing the results to the real world values you've provided and tweaking the material properties using a search algorithm until they meet your
needs. For users, this can save days of "guess-and-check" simulations. Instead of doing all this work by hand, users can run a material characterization simulation one time and walk away while BFA crunches the numbers.
The analysis provides usable DEM properties, not physical properties that need any further conversion or adaptation to become DEM-ready. And the properties are for your specific material, meaning they are for use with your material size and material size mixture, and density. At the end of the simulation, BFA creates a material component containing the optimal properties, and generates a report displaying the results and images of the DEM simulations that most closely matched the tests.