Coupled finite-discrete element modeling and potential applications in civil engineering

Since its appearance at the last of seventy decades, the Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) has been widely used in the modeling of geomaterials but regrettably limited to small scales problems by considering grains interactions. Recently, a new trend has emerged in combining DEM with other methods. The coupled approach allows extending the methods toward a wide range of civil engineering applications. Among them, FEM×DEM coupling has been the topic of research over the past decade. The FEM×DEM coupling has been mainly developed in two categories: direct interaction and multi-scale coupled models. In the first regard, this paper summarizes the basic principle of FEM and DEM, then reviews a number of possible direct coupling strategies between FEM and DEM together with potential applications in civil engineering. The second objective is to develop a model that combines these two above mentioned methods in a multi-scale approach. The results obtained by the developed model have been proved to efficiently tackle the complicated problem in engineering applications by assessing both macro and micro features and establishing the linking information between them.