[learn_more caption=”Erik Olsson”] Erik Olsson is currently working as a Post-doc at the department of Solid Mechanics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Sweden, from where he received his PhD in February 2015 with a PhD thesis entitled “Micromechanics of Powder Compaction”. Research interests are contact mechanics applied to DEM simulations as well as applying DEM to powders used in the industry.[/learn_more]

Simulation of powder compaction and modelling of the pressed body are of importance in many applications in the powder industry. Typical features that are of interest are the compact density as function of the applied pressure, elastic deformation during ejection and the strength of the resulting compact. In this presentation, the discrete element method (DEM) is applied to simulate the compaction process and the properties of the pressed compact. In DEM each single object, in this case; the particles, is modelled as an individual object and the contact forces from neighbouring objects determine the motion of the particles. Of this reason, the computation of contact forces is the key issue in DEM simulations and it will be discussed how to determine these forces by micromechanical experiments and finite element simulations of the contact problem. In order to simulate the strength of the pressed compacts, both adhesive bonding between the particles as well as a newly developed fracture criterion for the particles themselves are presented. Simulation results regarding compaction, unloading behaviour and fracture of the compacts will be presented and a comparison with experimental data from powders, used in the Swedish industry, shows excellent agreement.