I am hoping to simulate variable stiffness particles using the GRANULAR package. For example, I am simulating 5 grains, each of which should have a different stiffness. I am using a Hookean pair_style. I understand that I can define a spring stiffness and damping prefactor for each pairwise interaction between 2 grains. However, I am unsure of how the pairwise spring stiffness defined for the interaction of particle types X and Y relates to the stiffness of particle X and Y.
Thanks for any help you can provide. Apologies if this question has an obvious answer, I am a beginner!
Hi owala, if you define a stiffness for type 1-1 interactions, say k11, and for type 2-2 interactions, say k22, by default the 1-2 stiffness will be a geometric mean k12 = sqrt(k11*k22). Alternatively, you can always define k12 manually and not rely on mixing.
Hi @jtclemm, thanks for your reply! Just to make sure I understand, if I had 5 grain types, I could define k11, k22, k33, k44, and k55 to be the stiffnesses for grains 1-5, respectively. Is this correct? Thanks again!