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EDEM Creator
EDEM Creator is the pre-processor for creating an EDEM simulation model, including setting up equipment and defining the generation of bulk materials.
Creator Tree-Bulk Material
Creator Tree-Bulk Material allows you to add bulk material and bulk material particle shapes to a model and define their interactions.
Add Bulk Material Particles
You can add bulk material particle shapes such as Multi-Sphere, Polyhedral, and Sphero-Cylinder.
Add Polyhedral Particles
You can define a Polyhedral particle using one of the basic polyhedral particle shapes or an imported CAD geometry.
Add Default Polyhedral Particle Shapes
You can define the particle shape of the Polyhedral particle such as Cuboid, Triangular Pyramid, Prism, or CAD Geometry.
Delaunay Meshing
You use the Delaunay Triangulation algorithm when you import a custom particle shape to ensure that the particle is convex.

Welcome
What's New
New features and enhancements available in EDEM.
Release Notes
This document contains information about the EDEM release, such as key features and enhancements, bug fixes, and known issues.
About EDEM
EDEM is a high-performance simulation software for bulk and granular materials.
Get Started with EDEM
The EDEM user interface comprises three icons for each simulation component - Creator, Simulator, and Analyst.
EDEM Creator
EDEM Creator is the pre-processor for creating an EDEM simulation model, including setting up equipment and defining the generation of bulk materials.
- Creator Tree-Project
  Creator Tree-Project allows you to define the title and description for the simulation.
- Creator Tree-Bulk Material
  Creator Tree-Bulk Material allows you to add bulk material and bulk material particle shapes to a model and define their interactions.
  - Add Bulk Material to a Model
    A Bulk Material comprises the particle bulk material properties, particle shape, and size distribution.
  - Add Bulk Material Particles
    You can add bulk material particle shapes such as Multi-Sphere, Polyhedral, and Sphero-Cylinder.
    - Add Multi-Sphere Particles
      You can define a particle using one or more spheres, and overlap multiple spheres to create Multi-Sphere particles.
    - Add Polyhedral Particles
      You can define a Polyhedral particle using one of the basic polyhedral particle shapes or an imported CAD geometry.
      - Add Default Polyhedral Particle Shapes
        You can define the particle shape of the Polyhedral particle such as Cuboid, Triangular Pyramid, Prism, or CAD Geometry.
        Delaunay Meshing
        You use the Delaunay Triangulation algorithm when you import a custom particle shape to ensure that the particle is convex.
      - Import Custom Particle Shapes
        EDEM allows you to create and define flexible fiber/materials.
    - Add Sphero-Cylinder Particles
      You can define a Sphero-Cylinder particle using the length and radius, where the length is the total length of the particle including the rounded ends.
  - Create and Define Meta-Particles
    A Meta-Particle is a collection of individual Multi-Sphere or Sphero-Cylinder particles bonded together using EDEM’s Bonding V2 contact model.
  - Size Distribution for Particle Shapes
    You can specify the size distribution for the particle shapes in each Bulk Material including Meta-Particles.
  - Material Starter Packs
    The Soils Starter and Powders Starter packs are installed with EDEM.
  - Materials database
    You can store and transfer material, interaction data, Meta-Particles, and Material Block data in a database file between simulations.
- Creator Tree-Equipment Material
  Creator Tree-Equipment Material allows you to add equipment material to a model and define interactions between materials.
- Creator Tree-Geometries
  Creator Tree-Geometries allows you to use Geometry sections to construct the environment in which your bulk material interacts.
- Creator Tree-Environment
  Creator Tree-Environment allows you to define global settings for the simulation in the Environment section.
- Creator Tree-Physics
  Creator Tree-Physics allows you to add Physics interactions.
EDEM Simulator
EDEM Simulator is a powerful solver used for fast and efficient simulations.
EDEM Analyst
EDEM Analyst is the post-processor used to analyze and visualize the results of your simulation.
EDEM Contact Models
A Contact Model describes how elements behave when they come into contact with each other.
EDEM Cal Utility
EDEM Cal is a utility which works with EDEM and is designed to assist in performing calibration.
GPU CUDA Guide
The EDEM CUDA GPU module uses the latest General Purpose Computing on Graphical Processing Units (GPU) technology.
Programming Guide
The EDEM Programming Guide describes the EDEM API.
Coupling Interface Programming Guide
The Coupling Interface Programming Guide provides an overview of how to use the EDEM Coupling Interface to couple with a generic CFD code and/or Multi Body dynamics codes.
EDEMpy
EDEMpy is a Python library for accessing EDEM data from .h5 files (the underlying EDEM file format). EDEMpy does not require prior knowledge of advanced programming.
EDEM Solver Capabilities
EDEM contains four solver engines.
Appendix
This section provides additional information about how to estimate simulation time, supported EDEM File types, attribute definitions, and so on.
EDEM Terminology
Definitions of terms used in EDEM.
References and Bibliography
This section cites the contributions made by various authors and sources that have been used as reference material for EDEM, and the specifics of how they have been applied can be found in the individual contact model sections.

Delaunay Meshing

You use the Delaunay Triangulation algorithm when you import a custom particle shape to ensure that the particle is convex.

Delaunay meshing produces a shape that is compatible with the EDEM Polyhedral solver. You can use this option only on shapes that are nearly convex but have minor concavity due to the meshing process or CAD generation. Delaunay triangulation is used to maximize each triangle's minimum angle to produce a mesh with no high aspect ratio or slither triangles and frequently reduce the number of triangle elements.

The following example shows a Standard and Delaunay import:

The Delaunay mesh is designed so that no new nodes appear within the circumsphere of any triangle element. The following example describes the same in 2D with circles but the same principles are applied with spheres for 3D meshes. A triangle element cannot be formed because the node is within the circumcircle of another triangle, and, therefore does not satisfy the Delaunay criteria.

The following example shows a Delaunay mesh that satisfies the Delaunay criteria: