Motion Control Utility

Quick Start Guide

 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

Motion Control Utility: Quick Start

Guide
This Motion Control Utility application is intended to make EDEM simulations that
require forces / torques easier to set up, by using a graphical user interface (GUI). In
order to use it, you will need a license token for EDEM's coupling interface.
To use the application:
1. Open EDEM.

2. Load the deck which you would like to couple to.

3. Start the coupling server in EDEM.

4. Start the Motion Control Utility executable (MotionControlUtility.exe).

5. Click ‘Connect’ in the Motion Control Utility.

6. Add torques and / or forces to geometries.

7. Click ‘Simulate’ in the Motion Control Utility.

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

Main Dialog Box

1. Selection box that allows you to select the geometry / geometries which you
want to apply a force or torque to. This box is populated automatically once you
connect to EDEM through the coupling interface. Multiple geometries can be
selected at the same time.

2. Current simulation time in EDEM.

3. Time which you would like the simulation to end at.

4. Click to add a force to the selected geometry / geometries.

5. Click to add a torque to the selected geometry / geometries.

6. Start the simulation.

7. Stop the simulation.

8. Connect to EDEM through the coupling interface.

9. Disconnect from EDEM.

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

10. Save the current settings to file. See section ‘Save / Load Settings’ below for
details.

11. Load settings from an existing file. See section ‘Save / Load Settings’ below for
details.

12. Close the application.

Add Force Dialog Box

1. (X,Y,Z) Force components, in Newtons (N), you would like to apply to the
geometry.

These fields take numbers and equations parameterized in time, represented

as t. See section ‘Force / Torque Inputs as Equations’ below for details.

2. (Initial Velocity components – not currently implemented)

3. Start and end times, in seconds (s), for the force to be applied. A value of -1 in
the End Time box results in the force being applied for all time.

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

4. Mass of the geometry, in kilograms (kg).

5. Enable force feedback on the selected geometry by ticking the checkbox. The
geometry will not respond to any applied values unless this checkbox is ticked.

6. Enable acceleration due to gravity, defined in EDEM, to the selected geometry

by ticking the checkbox.

7. Value for which the X, Y or Z velocity component will not exceed.

8. Enable the capping of the velocities being applied in X, Y or Z, by ticking the

appropriate checkbox.

9. Value for a damping coefficient, 𝑘, which will be used to apply a damping force,
𝐹𝑑𝑎𝑚𝑝 , to the geometry where:

𝐹𝑑𝑎𝑚𝑝 = −𝑘𝑣

and 𝑣 is the geometry’s velocity.

10. Enable the Damping Force, as defined above.

11. Accept entered values and close the window.

12. Cancel all changes and close the window.

Add Torque Dialog Box

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

1. (X,Y,Z) Torque components, in Newton metres (Nm), you would like to apply
to the selected geometry.

These fields take numbers and equations parameterized in time, represented

as t. See section ‘Force / Torque Inputs as Equations’ below for details.

2. Initial Moment of Inertia components, in kg·m2, for the selected geometry.

3. Point of action around which the torque is applied. See point 6, below.

4. Mass of the geometry, in kilograms (kg).

5. Enable the radio button to set the point of action as the centre of mass of the
geometry.

6. Enable the radio button to set the point of action at a specific point. Once this
option is enabled, the corresponding entry fields above are available to edit.

7. Enable torque feedback on the selected geometry by ticking the checkbox. The
geometry will not respond to any applied values unless this checkbox is ticked.

8. Value for which the component of angular-velocity around X, Y or Z will not

exceed.

9. Enable the capping of the angular-velocities being applied around X, Y or Z, by

ticking the appropriate checkbox.

10. Accept entered values and close the window.

11. Cancel all changes and close the window.

Force / Torque Inputs as Equations

The input fields for both torque and force can take equations, as well as numerical
values. These fields take equations in time, parameterized as 𝑡, which can be used to
create a wide-range of behavior. No other parameters are currently accepted, so you
must write your equations in terms of 𝑡, and not 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧, nor any other.
The parser used is TinyExpr, which contains a library of functions that can be used:
https://github.com/codeplea/tinyexpr#functions-supported
This means that both torque and force values can be input with the following functions:
addition (+), subtraction/negation (-), multiplication (*), division (/),
exponentiation (^), modulus (%)
The following C math functions are also supported:
abs (calls to fabs), acos, asin, atan, atan2, ceil, cos, cosh, exp, floor, ln (calls
to log), log (calls to log10), log10, pow, sin, sinh, sqrt, tan, tanh

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 Motion Control Utility: Quick Start Guide

Save / Load Settings

The settings within the current session of the Motion Control Utility can be saved to a
text file, so that they can be loaded again later. The file is saved in the widely-used and
human-readable *.json format. Although the file can be edited in a text editor, this is
not generally recommended and should not be common practice. Should you wish to
make changes to the *.json file outside of the program, it is recommended that you
make a backup-copy first.

Running in Command Line

The Motion Control Utility can also be launched via command line and executed
‘headless’, that is without a GUI. There are two flags available to control how the
program operates in this mode and both need to be specified:

-i or --inputFile <json settings file>

-e or --endTime <simulation end time>

To run in command line mode, you must have a *.json file already created. As this
cannot be done via command line, you must first set this up when running with the
GUI. This is communicated to the program with the -i or --inputFile flag.
The *.json file will hold the settings for the geometries but does not store the simulation
end time. This means that the end time must be specified when running in command
line, using the -e or --endTime flag.
An example input therefore might be:

which would use the settings stored in the file “settings.json” and run for 10 seconds.

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