Calibrating the Micromechanical Parameters of the PFC2D(3D) Models Using the Improved Simulated Annealing Algorithm

PFC2D(3D) is commercial software, which is commonly used to model the crack initiation of rock and rock-like materials. For the PFC2D(3D) numerical simulation, a proper set of microparameters need to be determined before the numerical simulation. To obtain a proper set of microparameters for PFC2D(3D) model based on the macroparameters obtained from physical experiments, a novel technique has been carried out in this paper. The improved simulated annealing algorithm was employed to calibrate the microparameters of the numerical simulation model of PFC2D(3D). A Python script completely controls the calibration process, which can terminate automatically based on a termination criterion. The microparameter calibration process is not based on establishing the relationship between microparameters and macroparameters; instead, the microparameters are calibrated according to the improved simulated annealing algorithm. By using the proposed approach, the microparameters of both the contact-bond model and parallel-bond model in PFC2D(3D) can be determined. To verify the validity of calibrating the microparameters of PFC2D(3D) via the improved simulated annealing algorithm, some examples were selected from the literature. The corresponding numerical simulations were performed, and the numerical simulation results indicated that the proposed method is reliable for calibrating the microparameters of PFC2D(3D) model.