Particle Merging-and-Splitting

Robustly handling collisions between individual particles in a large particle-based simulation has been a challenging problem. We introduce particle merging-and-splitting, a simple scheme for robustly handling collisions between particles that prevents inter-penetrations of separate objects without introducing numerical instabilities. This scheme merges colliding particles at the beginning of the time-step and then splits them at the end of the time-step. Thus, collisions last for the duration of a time-step, allowing neighboring particles of the colliding particles to influence each other. We show that our merging-and-splitting method is effective in robustly handling collisions and avoiding penetrations in particle-based simulations. We also show how our merging-and-splitting approach can be used for coupling different simulation systems using different and otherwise incompatible integrators. We present simulation tests involving complex solid-fluid interactions, including solid fractures generated by fluid interactions.Immediate accessThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu