Executive Summary: Aspherix® vs. LIGGGHTS® / CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC
Aspherix® is the commercial, industry-grade Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulation software developed by DCS as the official successor to the open-source LIGGGHTS® and CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC frameworks. While the open-source PUBLIC release (last updated in 2017) provides foundational CPU-based DEM physics, Aspherix® adds CUDA GPU acceleration, a modern Graphical User Interface (GUI), an advanced 6DOF dynamic solver, multi-phase CFD-DEM coupling for OpenFOAM®, and automated parameter calibration.
Beyond core software functionality, Aspherix® is backed by DCS’s dedicated engineering team, providing deep industrial problem-solving capabilities, custom physics model development, simulation troubleshooting, and expert consulting to tackle complex particle process challenges.
Aspherix® vs. LIGGGHTS® - What is the difference?
| Feature Category | Open-Source PUBLIC Version (LIGGGHTS® / CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC) |
DCS Commercial Suite (Aspherix® & CFDEM®coupling) |
|---|---|---|
| Development Status | Last major release: Nov 30, 2017 | Active development, Industry grade. |
| User Interface & Usability | Command-line execution and standard script files. | Modern GUI, Independent Agentic Working, 'Natural Language' input language, post-simulation evaluation functionality, easy to use open output format for Paraview and Ovito |
| Operating Systems | Linux | Linux, Windows 11. |
| Support & Customization | - | Professional support, Maintenance & custom development. |
| Parallelization & Load Balancing | Standard MPI parallelization. | Optimized MPI parallelization (~3x faster), GPU acceleration (~10x faster) |
| GPU Acceleration | - | CUDA GPU acceleration (Linux & Windows) for most relevant features. |
| Particle Shapes | Sphere, multisphere, superquadric. | Sphere, multisphere, superquadric, Convex & concave triangulated surface, fibers, arbitrary bonded particles. |
| Normal Contact Models | Hertz, Hooke | Hertz, Hooke, JKR, Luding, Thornton-Ning, Adhesive Elasto-Plastic, Fragmentation. |
| Rolling Friction Models | cdt, epsd, eps2, epsd3 | cdt, epsd, eps2, epsd3, simplistic. |
| Cohesion Models | sjkr, sjkr2, capillary models | sjkr, sjkr2, capillary models, sjkr time/temperature dependent, liquid bridge models, lubrication model, solidification model, fiber cohesion, powder cohesion, asphalt, bond models, bubble coalescence models. |
| Tangential Contact Models | history, no history | history, no history, adhesive elasto plastic, burgers asphalt, specialized history models (attrition, attrition angle, powder, temperature dependent, time dependent). |
| Heat Transfer | Basic conduction | Conduction, Radiation, Melting, Roasting, high-Biot number heat transfer, mesh-to-particle heat transfer, one/four-way coupled heat transfer from fluid fields to particles, coupled fluid/particle/wall heat transfer, shell conduction wall model |
| Chemical & Mass Transfer | - | Chemical Reactions & Mass Transfer including dynamic particle size and mass changes, evaporation. |
| Electromagnetism & Charging | Basic electric field fixes | Electrical conductivity, Electric Current, Resistance, Ohmic heating (with non-spherical particles), Magnetic Dipole, electric field from particle charge, tribo-charging. |
| Fiber & Flexible Media Dynamics | - | Fiber buckling, cutting, plastic/wet fibers. |
| Advanced Physics | - | Built-in adaptive coarse-graining, drag (different modes in 1/4-way coupling), buoyancy, simplified fluid model, advanced liquid bridge & liquid transport, Spray coating, Lagrangian droplets, Laser modeling, Particle breakage & attrition, Powder compaction, efficient high pressure contact models, magnetic interaction, electrostatic interaction, complex collision interaction (e.g. wetting), improved stability (advanced Euler-Lagrange mapping & smoothing algorithms). |
| Equipment Wear & Attrition | Finnie wear model | Finnie, Archard, combined Roessler-Katterfeld wear models, and resolved surface wear. |
| Particle Insertion | pack, stream insertion | pack, stream, fill region, rate in region, batch insertion, dense packings, spray nozzles, laser diodes. |
| Mesh Control & Dynamics | Basic motion types, servo | File mesh motion, servo, 6DOF, mesh repair routines, mesh deformation, periodic domain support |
| Simulation Control & Calibration | Basic run and restart | Criterion-based run time control, restarting aborted simulation, Built-in automated parameter calibration. |
| Integration & APIs | Python API | Python & C++ API, dedicated 6DOF solver. |
| Industrial Analytics | Manual computes. | Mixing Index, Residence time & distance distribution, Voronoi, Steady-state detection, collision statistics, advanced spatial & temporal averaging, post-simulation evaluation functionality. |
| Coupling Interfaces | CFD (basic), Support for OpenFOAM 6 | CFD (1-way and 4-way), Support for OpenFOAM 10, electric field coupling, basic FEM & MBD. |
| CFD Functionality & Fluid Solvers | Incompressible, single fluid, spherical, resolved/unresolved, CPU only. | Compressible, reacting, incompressible, multi-phase, phase-change, resolved/unresolved/hybrid, spherical/non-spherical, GPU coupled solver. |
Frequently Asked Questions: Aspherix® vs. LIGGGHTS®
Q: Is Aspherix® a direct upgrade/successor to open-source LIGGGHTS®?
Yes. Aspherix® was built by DCS as the commercial successor to LIGGGHTS® and CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC. It maintains the core physics capabilities of LIGGGHTS® while adding advanced solvers, GPU acceleration, a graphical user interface (GUI), and professional technical support.
Q: How much faster is Aspherix® compared to open-source LIGGGHTS®?
Aspherix® features optimized MPI parallelization (delivering roughly 3x faster CPU execution) as well as full CUDA GPU acceleration for Linux and Windows (delivering roughly 10x faster compared to CPU execution), enabling significantly faster particle simulation runtimes for large-scale industrial systems.
Q: Can I run CFD-DEM simulations with non-spherical particles in Aspherix®?
Yes. While CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC is primarily restricted to spherical particles, Aspherix® integrated with CFDEM®coupling supports full 1-way and 4-way CFD-DEM coupling across spheres, multispheres, superquadrics, fibers, and arbitrary convex shapes.
Q: Which versions of OpenFOAM® does Aspherix® support?
While CFDEM®coupling-PUBLIC support ended with older releases (OpenFOAM® 6), Aspherix® actively supports modern OpenFOAM® releases up to OpenFOAM® 10, alongside advanced compressible, reacting, and GPU-coupled fluid solvers.
Q: What if our particle process involves unique physics or complex industrial challenges?
Aspherix® is backed by direct access to DCS’s senior DEM and CFD engineering team. Beyond off-the-shelf software, we actively partner with industrial clients to solve high-difficulty engineering problems—offering custom contact physics development, specialized model implementation, automated calibration workflows, and collaborative R&D consulting tailored to your specific processing equipment.