Simulation package for multiple particle system with custom motion equations

[birulami]

I would like to see how a bunch of point particles evolve given equations describing their velocities and, possibly, their reflection inside a box. I would like to experiment with velocity functions that are possibly non-physical, i.e. I would like to make up my own, not using prescribed physical trajectories.

Basically I would expect the software to have the positions of the particles initialized, then compute their next position given the equations and a delta t, display the particles and so on.

Nothing complicated and I certainly could hack something myself, but maybe there are some frameworks out their that do exactly that already where I just have to specify the box and the equations in some suitable form.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Harald.

 

[eljose79]

Dear Harald,

There are several software frameworks available that can help you simulate the evolution of point particles with given equations and boundary conditions. One such framework is OpenFOAM, which is an open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. It has a built-in solver for particle tracking, which can be used to simulate the movement of point particles in a box. You can specify the equations and boundary conditions in the form of boundary conditions and initial conditions in the input file, and the software will compute the particle trajectories and display them in a visualization tool. OpenFOAM also has the capability to handle non-physical velocity functions, allowing you to experiment with different scenarios.

Another option is LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator), which is a classical molecular dynamics code that can be used to simulate particles in a box. LAMMPS has a wide range of built-in force fields and equations that can be used to describe the interactions between particles. It also has the ability to incorporate custom equations and boundary conditions, allowing you to create your own velocity functions and study their effects on the particle evolution.

Lastly, if you are looking for a more user-friendly option, there are also particle simulation software packages such as Blender and VMD that have built-in particle dynamics solvers. These software packages have a graphical user interface that allows you to easily specify the initial conditions, equations, and boundary conditions for your simulation. They also have visualization tools that can display the particle trajectories and provide insights into their behavior.

I hope these suggestions help you find the right software framework for your particle simulation experiments. Happy experimenting!