When a water droplet is deposited on a hot granular bed, its interaction with the bed depends on the temperature [1]. We present a semi-resolved FEM-DEM model, combining the Volume-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (VANS) [2, 3] and the Discrete Element Method (DEM) using the Non-Smooth Contact Dynamics (NSCD) algorithm [4], to simulate the droplet digging. A heat transfer constitutive law between fluid and granular media is introduced and validated. Two-dimensional simulations are used to investigate how the bed temperature affects the droplet depth and heat transfer inside the granular bed. The results reveal three regimes: (1) at low temperatures, the droplet remains on the surface, with insufficient evaporation to fluidise the grains; (2) at intermediate temperatures, the droplet penetrates as the grains fluidise and are ejected, forming a chimney; (3) at high temperatures, rapid evaporation prevents penetration as the grains refill the hole before the droplet descends. This study demonstrates the ability of FEM-DEM model to investigate complex fluid-thermal-granular interactions. It also suggests a potential method for energy recovery from hot granular beds using water droplets as fluidisation vectors. References [1] Fangye Lin et al. “Deep spontaneous penetration of a water droplet into hot granular materials”. In: Physical Review Fluids 7.3 (2022), p. 034301. [2] T Bo Anderson and ROY Jackson. “Fluid mechanical description of fluidized beds. Equations of motion”. In: Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Fundamentals 6.4 (1967), pp. 527–539. [3] Nathan Coppin et al. “Collapse dynamics of two-dimensional dry and immersed granular columns of elongated grains”. In: Physical Review Fluids 8.9 (2023), p. 094303. [4] Michel Jean. “The non-smooth contact dynamics method”. In: Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering 177.3-4 (1999), pp. 235–257.