I-Corps: Multi-physics Software for Arbitrarily-shaped Objects

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是一种技术的应用，即水平集离散元方法(LS-DEM)，用于解决现实世界的问题。具体地说，该项目将考察该技术在岩土工程、土木工程、食品储存、添加剂制造工艺、制药生产线以及采矿和挖掘行业等领域的商业可行性。LS-DEM在工程实践中具有超越当前技术的能力，能够更准确地分析工程设计，增强现有工程流程的优化，并在时间和金钱方面降低工程成本。此外，通过增加对这项技术所能提供的物理过程的了解，现有基础设施和新基础设施的安全性有可能大幅提高。总体而言，建议的技术有可能成为一种变革性的技术，对许多商业行业产生积极的影响。这个i-Corps项目调查了水平集离散元方法(LS-DEM)技术的潜在商业应用和市场。这种方法的智能优点是允许对任意形状的离散对象进行快速模拟和建模，从而克服了该领域内的主要挑战。离散物体的建模在许多商业应用中非常重要，而形状对于正确理解系统是至关重要的。例如，球形对象的行为与矩形对象非常不同，然而当前的离散方法大多局限于大颗粒系统中的球形近似。这导致了LS-DEM通过有效和准确地复制任何组件的形状而克服的不准确和信息量较少的结果。通过过去的研究证明，LS-DEM是一种具有很高精度和预测性的工程工具。这项工作将调查各种商业应用，在这些应用中，对离散对象相互作用的更好理解可以影响我们对所讨论的一个或多个系统的工程和科学理解。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the applications of a technology, the Level Set Discrete Element Method (LS-DEM), to solve real-world problems. Specifically, the project will look at the commercial viability of the technology in geotechnical engineering, civil engineering, food storage, additive manufacturing processes, pharmaceutical production lines, and mining and excavation industries among many others. LS-DEM has capabilities that exceed current techniques within engineering practice, enabling more accurate analysis of engineering designs, enhancing optimization of existing engineering processes, and reducing engineering costs both in terms of time and money. Additionally, the potential exists for large improvements in the safety of both existing and new infrastructure from the increased understanding of physical processes that this technology can provide. Overall, the proposed technology has the potential to be a transformative technology that positively impacts many commercial industries.This I-Corps project investigates potential commercial applications and markets for the Level Set Discrete Element Method (LS-DEM) technology. The intellectual merit of this method is to allow the rapid simulation and modeling of discrete objects with any shape, overcoming a major challenge within the field. Modeling of discrete objects is important in many commercial applications and shape is pivotal for correctly understanding systems. For example, spherical objects behave very differently than rectangular objects, yet current discrete methods are mostly limited to spherical approximations in large granular systems. This results in less accurate and less informative results that LS-DEM overcomes by effectively and exactly replicating any component's shape. LS-DEM has proven through past research to be highly accurate and predictive engineering tool. This work will investigate various commercial applications, where a better understanding of discrete object interactions can impact our engineering and scientific understanding of the system or systems in question.