Simulation of free falling Balls

[karthic.cariappa]

Greetings,

   I have been working on a model. Basically, small capsules of dia 3 to 4mm will be fed to a  Vibratory Bowl feeder. The Capsules from feeder bowl will be free falling through a hopper onto a circular plate with guides. The circular plate will be vibrating too.  

Linear Tracks have been made on the circular plate such that only one capsule would move through it and align itself and others will follow one after the other. The line of capsules will exit onto a  chute for camera inspection one by one.

I need to simulate these capsules such that when it falls from the Feeder bowl onto the plate, due to vibration the capsules will move towards its designated tracks one by one. 

Is it possible to do it in Inventor? Or Should I try with some other software?

Thank You 

[basnederveen]

Will probably cost some time, but is possible. You can add a spatial joint between the falling object and an item in the assembly. Then add 3D contact joints between the components that should touch.

Probably best to follow some youtube/google tutorials first..

[joelbecker0]

I have the same question, but have not been able to find any videos or google results that show how to do this type of simulation involving free bodies. Anyone else know how?

[matt_jlt]

Although you might eb able to write something for Inventor to handle this uou are probably looking for a type of DEM Software. Just google Computational Fluid Dynamics / Discrete Element Method /Flow Modelling.

First two results that pop up are Rocky DEM & EDEM. There is an open source version as well 

LIGGGHTS by CFDEM although it requires more manual work. 

The commercial software is pretty expensive. EDEM being the most expensive that i have found.

Hope this helps.