Strategy for co-simulation of multi-flexible-body dynamics and the discrete element method

Multi-flexible-body dynamics (MFBD) and the discrete element method (DEM) are well suited for co-simulation. This paper proposes an efficient, robust, and stable strategy for co-simulating between MFBD solvers and DEM solvers based on the conventional serial staggered (CSS) procedure for co-simulation. A standardized version of this strategy is also proposed that enables the DEM solver to be embedded into the MFBD software. If embedded in this manner, the MFBD software could be extended to create a single MFBD/DEM model, execute a co-simulation, and post process the results in one environment. The proposed strategy is coded into the commercial software RecurDyn. A simple DEM solver is formulated in this paper, embedded into RecurDyn, and numerical examples to demonstrate the feasibility of this proposal are presented.