8 - Hard-Sphere Model

Summary

This chapter explains the hard-sphere model of particle-particle collision. This model exploits impulse equations that directly relate the pre-collisional and post-collisional velocities of the particles. Thus, this model does not track the deformation history that was done in the prior chapters. As a result, we obtain ready analytical solutions so that the computational time is short. First, the chapter shows a standard hard-sphere model for a “mechanical” collision of two bodies. Different strategies are presented, such as the so-called two- and three-parameter hard-sphere model. Later, an extension of these models is shown that also accounts for adhesive interactions. Although, due to its simplicity, the hard-sphere model may not account for various physical phenomena between colliding particles, it may still be used in many applications. In this chapter, the reader is again provided with a computer code.