Efficient Simulation of Deformable Particles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a 2D deformation model for soft particles, accurately simulating their shape changes under forces and collisions, validated against numerical models, and applicable to jammed and thermal packings.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel 2D deformation model for soft particles that accounts for energy conservation and is validated against existing numerical simulations.

Findings

Model accurately predicts particle deformation shapes.

Extension to jammed packings and thermal equilibrium.

Protocol for force calculation based on deformation.

Abstract

We provide a two dimensional deformation model to describe how soft squishy circular particles respond to external forces and collisions. This model involves formulating mathematical equations and algorithms for the shape of a deformed particle based on the geometrical as well as physical properties of the particles, such as their size and elasticity. The model also accounts for the conservation of energy associated with the particle shape during interaction with other particles as well as with rigid walls. To verify the accuracy of the shape of the deformed particles, we start with a single deformable particle in an overcompressed box which we compare with the numerically simulated deformable polygon (DP) model. Then we extend our method to a jammed packing of deformable particles which we also verify through the DP model. We also provide a protocol to calculate the total force acting on such deformable particles solely based on their deformation and to obtain both athermal jammed packings as well as packings in thermal equilibrium.