Real-Time Simulation of Granular Materials Using Graphics Hardware

We present a method to compute friction in a particle-based simulation of granular materials on GPUs and its data structure. We use Distinct Element Method to compute the force between particles. There has been a method to accelerate Distinct Element Method using GPUs, but the method does not compute friction. We implemented friction into the DEM simulation on GPUs and this leads to the real-time simulation of granular materials.