ABSTRACT
Discontinua modelling techniques such as DDA, DEM, FEM/DEM and Manifold methods have enabled researchers, scientists and engineers to address many complex industrial and scientific problems in the last few years. Furthermore, algorithmic breakthroughs such as discretised contact, linear searchers (NBS, C-GRID), finite rotations solvers, and use of real shaped particles, etc. have been made. Problems comprising millions of irregular particles have been analysed. The result is that Computational Mechanics of Discontinua and Discontinua Modelling are becoming an important part of Computational Mechanics, which in turn is a part of Rational Mechanics and Mathematical Physics. Whereas the creation of a virtual system representation has become relatively straight-forward for many continua modelling applications, this is not so for discontinua. With so much algorithmic potential for discontinua modelling, it is becoming increasingly important to virtualise these systems, methods and approaches in order to make them available to the expanding field of researchers interested in employing Computational Discontinua Modelling in their relevant scientific and/or engineering disciplines. An attempt is made in this work to specify the key attributes for a virtual discontinua modelling workbench, one that is both feasible to build now and that would be especially attractive to users in the fields of geoscience and geomaterials engineering.
