Wave impact simulation using smoothed particle hydrodynamics

This paper presents a Virtual prototyping (VP) tool which is built around an explicit Finite Element (FE) software package with an embedded and fully coupled Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) solver that enables numerical simulation of large hydrodynamic loads on structures. Since SPH is a Lagrangian method that does not require a mesh it offers as significant advantage that it can very well describe violent free-surface flows in domains or around (partially) submerged bodies of arbitrary complex shape without loss of accuracy due to transport of volume fractions along interfaces as in most Eulerian numerical methods. The SPH method is therefore very well suited for simulation of overturning waves, water entry, slamming and green water phenomena.

A brief review of the basic SPH method and the coupling to the FE part of the solver will be presented below. Selected applications involving fluid-structure interaction will also be presented.