A DEM-simulation is started by first generating a model, which results in spatially orienting all particles and assigning an initial [[velocity]]. The the forces which act on each particle are computed from the initial data and the relevant physical laws and contact models. Generally, a simulation consists of three parts: the initialization, explicit time-stepping, and post-processing. The time-stepping usually requires a nearest neighbor sorting step to reduce the number of possible contact pairs and decrease the computational requirements; this is often only performed periodically.
The following forces may have to be considered in macroscopic simulations:
