Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a mesh-free method that discretizes a continuum into sub-volumes. In these sub-volumes, all relevant properties such as velocity, density and forces are assigned to a point. These points are called particles. Due to the Lagrangian formalism of the method, the particles move along the velocity field without any connection to neighboring particles. Compared to grid-based methods such as the Finite Element Method, the SPH method is particularly well suited for applications with large changes in the discretization domain. The main field of application is hydrodynamics for the simulation of fluids with free surfaces, multiphase flows with complex interfaces and fluid-structure interactions. The SPH method is also used for solids that undergo large elastic deformations and for fracture behavior in brittle materials.

Particle simulations are a research area at the Institute of Engineering and Computational Mechanics for more than 15 years. In addition to the SPH method, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is applied. In the following, an overview of current complex problems examined at the ITM is given.