Understanding the Impact of Modeling Uncertainty in Bulk Material Simulations using Altair’s Tool Suite

Ian Paulson, Project Engineer at Rockford Engineering Works Ltd presents at the 2024 ATCx DEM.

GPU computing capacity has made DEM an industry standard tool in the development of material handling equipment for agricultural, aggregate, and mining applications. Developing a material handling simulation often involves the creation of a suitable material model for the application. A calibration process is typically performed using measured macro-scale material data; these data all contain uncertainty. From these data, a calibration procedure is typically performed to identify parameter values for the chosen DEM contact model. In this work, the uncertainty in a DEM calibration workflow is investigated for a dry mining ore using Altair tools including Altair EDEM and Altair HyperStudy. Sources of uncertainty including typical instrumentation error, data fitting, sampling uncertainty from sampling a heterogenous bulk material, and inverse calibration are considered. The impact of material model uncertainty is demonstrated in two example simulations of common mining and material handling equipment.