A shift model based on particle collisions – preserving kinetic energy and potential energy in a constant force field – to avoid particle clustering in SPH

Lyu, Xipeng; Kruisbrink, Arno; Jefferson-Loveday, Richard

Abstract

In Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), the motion of particles is based on symmetric inter-particle forces, such that the conservation of momentum is guaranteed. Inter-particle forces, however, can not prevent particle clustering. Clustering may occur for several reasons. A fundamental issue is the tensile instability, which is caused by the properties of the kernel gradient. Clustering may also be caused by discontinuities in the pressure (e.g. due to surface tension) and the pressure gradient (e.g. due to gravity), which may lead to instabilities around the interface between two fluids (Kruisbrink et al., 2018 [1]). Wall penetration is also a form of particle clustering. To suppress particle clustering, the use of kinematic conditions (motion) rather than dynamic conditions (forces) was previously explored in the concept of particle collisions by Kruisbrink et al. (2018) [1]. In this concept, the conservation of momentum is always satisfied, whilst the conservation of energy is only satisfied for fully elastic collisions. They conclude that inelastic collisions are more stable than elastic collisions, but that energy is dissipated. In the present paper, the particle collision model is further explored and extended to a particle collision shift model, which in itself is non-dissipative, i.e. it preserves kinetic energy as well as potential energy in a constant force field, like gravitation. This is achieved by changing the particle positions due to inter-particle collisions, but not their velocities. Other popular and commonly used particle shift methods, such as the Fickian shift method of Lind et al. (2012) [2], are based on the particle concentration. They are non-conservative and as such dissipative to some extent. In this paper, the new particle collision shift model is introduced and explored in several case studies. This model is compared with another stabilization method, the Fickian Shift model of Lind et al. (2012) [2]. The particle collision shift model performs slightly better in terms of particle stability and reduction of energy dissipation in most of the case studies. However, it is simple (one algorithm only with few coefficients, no special treatment at the free surface) and efficient (no kernel approximation, less CPU time). This work is based on incompressible SPH (ISPH). The shift model may however also be applied to weakly compressible SPH.

Citation

Lyu, X., Kruisbrink, A., & Jefferson-Loveday, R. (2022). A shift model based on particle collisions – preserving kinetic energy and potential energy in a constant force field – to avoid particle clustering in SPH. Journal of Computational Physics, 469, Article 111530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2022.111530

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 6, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 30, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 15, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 2, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Journal: Journal of Computational Physics
• Print ISSN: 0021-9991
• Electronic ISSN: 1090-2716
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 469
• Article Number: 111530
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2022.111530
• Keywords: Computer Science Applications; Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous); Applied Mathematics; Computational Mathematics; Modeling and Simulation; Numerical Analysis
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/10637694
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021999122005927