Release Notes EDEM 2025.1

This section contains information about the EDEM 2025.1 release, such as key features, enhancements, and bug fixes.

Key Features

This section describes the key features in EDEM version 2025.1.

Collisional Energy Tracking Model

The Collisional Energy Tracking model is a new contact model that allows tracking of the energy dissipated in collisions during a simulation. The model records data for dissipated energy in a similar manner to the Track Collisions option that is already available in EDEM Simulator. However, only this model is compatible with both CPU and GPU simulations. The output of the model is stored in three custom counter properties that track the collision counts and energy losses for both Particle-Particle and Particle-Geometry collisions.

GranuTools Calibration Kits

The EDEM Calibration Kits now include Digital Twins of the popular GranuHeap and GranuDrum powder flowability characterization testers by GranuTools. Developed in collaboration with the GranuTools team, these enable users to run EDEM simulations of the standard test methods of the instruments out-of-the-box, and automatically obtain the standard test results using the same image analysis methodology employed for the physical measurements.

Enhancements

This section describes the enhancements in EDEM version 2025.1.

EDEM Analyst

  • Geometry Rendering Improvement

    Improvements have been made to the performance of rendering transparent Geometry.

Solver

  • Cylindrical Periodic Boundaries - limit extended to 180 degrees and handling of particles at the center of the domain
    Cylindrical periodic boundaries have been extended on the GPU CUDA solver. It is no longer necessary to prevent particles reaching the center of the cylindrical domain, with the angle limit being increased to 180 degrees. To support this, a new option Enable Self-Contacts and Double-Mirroring has been added to the Cylindrical Periodic Boundary settings. Usually, this option should be enabled when using the GPU CUDA solver or, by default, for new decks.
    Note: The new implementation allows particles near the center of the cylindrical domain to contact their own periodic images.
  • Command Line progress indicator

    Command Line output has been extended to provide a simulation completed percentage value.

  • Support for nano-scale particles

    The solver accuracy at the micrometer and nanometer scale has been improved and particle size limits have been reduced.

  • Optimization of Single-sphere simulations

    The performance of the GPU CUDA solver with Single-sphere particles has been improved.

GPU

  • Improved particle auto-refresh during simulation

    The performance of the GPU CUDA solver with the Auto Update enabled has been improved.

API

  • Access to Time in configForTimeStep() function for CUDA

    Access to the current simulation Time has been made consistent for CPU and GPU solvers within the configForTimestep() function.

  • API Material Manager
    A new API Material Manager has been created to provide information when required. The following information is now available:
    • All Material Names
    • Material Name (from ID)
    • Material ID (from Name)
    • Type (Bulk/Equipment)
    • Members (Particle Type IDs Geometry Section IDs)
    • Young's Modulus
    • Shear Modulus
    • Poisson's Ratio
    • Density
  • Mass Scaling Factor

    An additional parameter has been added to the solver and exposed through the API which allows the mass of a particle to be scaled without affecting its size. This is useful where the density of a particle changes, such as liquid absorption or evaporation. The updated mass and moment of inertia will be applied to the particle movement and mass analysis in the Analyst will also take this into account.

  • Access API Field Data from Contact Model (CUDA)

    The contact model calculateForce() function makes imported Field Data available for the EDEM GPU Solver (CUDA).

  • Mass Scaling Factor

    An additional parameter has been added to the solver and exposed through the API which allows the mass of a particle to be scaled without affecting its size. This is useful where the density of a particle changes, such as liquid absorption or evaporation. The updated mass and moment of inertia will be applied to the particle movement and mass analysis in the Analyst will also take this into account.

  • API GUI Material Lists separated by type

    API GUI options have been extended to allow the API Writer to select to display just Bulk Materials, Equipment Materials, or All Materials.

  • Custom Warning and Error Messages

    An API Warning Manager has been added which can be used in non-processing methods (starting, setup, stopping,setApiParametersTemplate, getParticleParameterData, and so on) to output custom warnings and errors to the EDEM messages dialog box.

  • The API setup() function provides model name to EDEM

    The setup() function has been extended to allow the API writer to specify a model name of their choice. Names can include spaces, numbers, and special characters.

Coupling

  • The getEDEMVersion() function for Coupling Interface

    A new function has been added to the Coupling Interface that will return a string representing the version of EDEM with which it is currently coupled.

EDEMpy

EDEMpy version 1.8.0 contains the following updates:
  • EDEMpy: access to Mass Scaling Factor post processing

    The Particle mass scaling factor is now available in the particle methods.

  • EDEMpy: add Cylinder Geometry

    A new createCylinderGeometry() function has been added to the deck class, to enable adding a cylinder Geometry section to a simulation deck.

  • EDEMpy: add Polygon Geometry

    A new createPolygonGeometry() function has been added to the deck class, to enable adding a polygon Geometry section to a simulation deck.

  • Altair Python package updated to 3.8.20

    The Python version used within Altair products has been updated to 3.8.20 (previously 3.8.10), which will have minimal impact on the users' scripts.

  • EDEMpy: Geometry Power

    A new getGeometryTotalPower() function has been added to the deck class, to get the power calculated for a Geometry section.

Other

  • Improved scaling support for high resolution screens

    The EDEM interface has been updated for improving scaling of fonts, icons, and so on, on high resolution displays.

Documentation

  • Online Help

    The EDEM Help documentation has been updated to point primarily athttps://help.altair.com/edem/ for improved tracking of the latest updates. You can still configure EDEM to use a local copy, if required.

Contact Models

  • Liquid Bridge Model update

    The updated Liquid Bridge model uses the latest API features such as Preserved Contacts and Mass Scaling. The use of preserved contacts removes the requirement of the contact radius. Mass scaling improves the compatibility with other models by actually changing the mass instead of modifying the total force on the particle.

  • Hydrodynamic Lubrication Model update

    The Hydrodynamic Lubrication model has been updated to fix an issue which prevented simulations from using the model on Linux systems.

Bug Fixes

This section lists the fixes for issues in EDEM version 2025.1.

EDEM

EDEM contains fixes for the following issues:

  • Looping a Recorded Factory could lead to particle generation ending prematurely due to particle IDs reaching a limit of two billion. The Factory Recorder has been improved to minimize the IDs reserved so affected users should re-run the recording simulation.
  • The processParticleOfInterest() function was still being called even when the corresponding flag was disabled.
  • Cylindrical Periodic Boundaries were not rendered correctly with certain values.
  • Displaying more than ten million contacts could cause EDEM to shut down.
  • Geometry elements could disappear when running with the CUDA GPU solver with the OKA Wear model and non-configured equipment material with deformation enabled.
  • EDEM could shut down if no particle types were defined, and the Drag model configuration dialog box was selected.
  • The tangential viscous damping force in the Linear Spring model was incorrect.
  • JKR models in the Hybrid precision mode with the CUDA solver was resulting in NaN values for contact patch radius.
  • Clarified command line help to explicitly state that Auto Mesh Size is available only for the Rigid Body option.
  • The API GUI was not detecting valid ranges for some fields in the Model Parameter dialog box.
  • If the API model parameters were changed, the API GUI dialog box would not load the parameters correctly.
  • Manually saving a deck in EDEM Simulator after running a simulation with the CPU solver could lead to corruption of saved particle force values.
  • The Polyhedral contact radius switch between the physical radius and contact radius was not working as expected.
  • EDEM Analyst save images with multiple displays was not rendering text correctly.
  • Spray Coating Analysis was not available on Linux.
  • Scatter plot markers outline was obscuring the results.

EDEMpy

EDEM contains fixes for the following EDEMpy issues:
  • EDEMpy would not create concave polyhedral particles.
  • The createBoxGeometry() function would create a box with the length and width reversed.