Material subjected to relatively high loads (consolidation) may experience plastic deformation, resulting in increased contact area and increased cohesive behaviour. History dependent elasto-plastic-adhesive contact models can be used in DEM to simulate this behaviour. One such model is the Edinburgh-Elasto-Plastic-Adhesive (EEPA) contact model proposed by Morrissey (2013).

A linear and a non-linear version of the EEPA contact model are implemented for PFC version 6.0. These versions contain several slight differences with regard to the original model proposed by Morrissey (2013), as discussed in the User Guide. These models have been tested in PFC3D version 6.00.27, and not tested with PFC2D.

Keywords

• PFC, EEPA, JKR, adhesion, cohesion, plasticity