MAE Graduate Seminar

Speaker: Dr. Joel T. Clemmer, Physicist at Sandia National Laboratories

Title: Large-scale simulations of granular materials and other discrete systems

Abstract:

Whether it is sand in concrete, pharmaceutical powders pressed into a tablet, or metal feedstocks 3Dprinted
into jet engine parts, granular materials cannot be escaped. Unfortunately, the mechanics of granular
materials are notoriously hard to accurately simulate. Granular material can be highly heterogeneous, varying in
size and shape, and full of discontinuities from frictional contacts to cracks and defects. Applications often involve
enormous numbers of interacting granules that collectively give rise to macroscopic behavior. In this talk, I will
cover the development of a variety of computational models of granular materials under evolving research needs as
a depiction of open-source development for high performance computing. The discussion will include high level
physical results from granular jamming, flow, and failure, illustrations from other important discontinuous
applications such as foams, strings, and fluid/solid structures, and explanations of shared computing concepts across
simulations.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and
Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S.
Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.