Physics engines, originally developed to simulate physical and mechanical processes in modern video games, are increasingly used as a scientific computational platform in many disciplines due to their high computational efficiency. This study explores the feasibility of using an open-source physics engine, Project Chrono, to simulate direct shear tests. This study develops a series of pre-processing, servo-controlling, and post-processing functions in Project Chrono to generate soil specimens with designed packing densities, perform direct shear tests, and output simulation results including stress–strain relations, fabrics, and force chains. To determine inter-particle contact forces, typical DEM codes use soft contact models, while most physics engines use hard contact models. The hard contact model enables physics engines to use large time steps in iterations without affecting the numerical stability and simulation accuracy, which remarkably reduces simulation time compared with typical DEM codes. Based on systematical comparisons between simulation results of two contact models, this study demonstrates that the hard contact model can yield the same direct shear test results observed in soft contact model simulations, but is ten times faster than the soft contact model for simulating the same number of particles. This study may provide DEM modelers with the physics engine as one more option for soil behavior simulation.

最初为模拟现代视频游戏中的物理和机械过程而开发的物理引擎由于其高计算效率而越来越多地在许多学科中用作科学计算平台。这项研究探索了使用开源物理引擎Project Chrono来模拟直接剪切测试的可行性。这项研究开发了Chrono项目中的一系列预处理，伺服控制和后处理功能，以生成具有设计装填密度的土壤样本，执行直接剪切试验，并输出包括应力-应变关系，织物和力的模拟结果链。为了确定粒子间的接触力，典型的DEM代码使用软接触模型，而大多数物理引擎使用硬接触模型。硬接触模型使物理引擎可以在迭代中使用较大的时间步长，而不会影响数值稳定性和仿真精度，与典型的DEM代码相比，这可以显着减少仿真时间。基于两个接触模型的仿真结果之间的系统比较，该研究表明，硬接触模型可以产生在软接触模型仿真中观察到的相同的直接剪切测试结果，但比模拟相同数量的软接触模型要快十倍的粒子。这项研究可能为DEM建模人员提供物理引擎，作为土壤行为模拟的另一种选择。基于两个接触模型的仿真结果之间的系统比较，该研究表明，硬接触模型可以产生在软接触模型仿真中观察到的相同的直接剪切测试结果，但比模拟相同数量的软接触模型快十倍的粒子。这项研究可能为DEM建模人员提供物理引擎，作为土壤行为模拟的另一种选择。基于两个接触模型的仿真结果之间的系统比较，该研究表明，硬接触模型可以产生在软接触模型仿真中观察到的相同的直接剪切测试结果，但比模拟相同数量的软接触模型要快十倍的粒子。这项研究可以为DEM建模人员提供物理引擎，作为土壤行为模拟的另一种选择。