Investigation of Strength Diversity Characterization in Mineral Materials Using Discrete Element Method

Accurate modeling of ore materials is fundamental to high-precision simulations in mineral processing and remains a key research focus. To address the modeling challenges arising from the inherent heterogeneity and strength diversity of ores, this study proposes a novel method based on the bonded particle model (BPM) in the Discrete Element Method (DEM), incorporating multi-sized sub-particle stochastic generation and assembly, as well as bond strength parameter design. The method was applied to model and simulate impact crushing of 30 mm size fraction gold, iron, and copper ores with varying strengths. The resulting particle size distributions of fragmented ores were analyzed. Furthermore, drop weight tests were conducted on ore samples of the same size fraction, and the experimental mass distribution of fragmented particles demonstrated good consistency with simulation results. These findings validate the capability of the proposed method to effectively characterize the strength diversity of natural ores, offering an advanced approach for high-fidelity modeling of mineral materials.