According to Dr Carlos Calle, Director of the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center:

"The expansion of the DEM technique to incorporate particle-particle and particle-surface electrostatic interactions will benefit the Exploration Mission Directorate by providing NASA with a powerful tool in the current development of the dust mitigation and characterization technologies which are underway at the Electrostatics and Surface Physics laboratory at KSC."

"Optimization of the KSC Dust Shield requires the ability to model dust particle behavior in the presence of complex electrodynamic fields. Mature dust mitigation technologies are essential for the safe operation of a lunar spaceport. Apollo astronauts reported that dust even degraded zippers and pulleys. DEM Solutions was selected because we wanted to build on off-the-shelf software and the user-friendliness and range of capabilities already available in the EDEM code made it attractive. In addition, the experience of the staff at DEM Solutions in modeling particulate systems in space applications gave us the confidence that they will be a strong partner on the project."

Dr. Peter Weitzman, Vice President of DEM Solutions (USA) Inc., added:

"We are delighted to be selected to help NASA in design of equipment for space exploration. We also expect that the technology developed in this project will allow us to better serve the needs of our commercial clients who need to include electromagnetic effects in modeling of particulate solids handling and processing operations."

EDEM is state-of-the-art DEM (Discrete Element Method) modeling software uniquely designed to couple with other CAE tools and user-defined numerical models including fluid dynamics, electrical and magnetic forces, chemical kinetics and rigid body dynamics.