Title: Material point method and smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of fluid flow problems: a comparative study

Authors: Zheng Sun; Haiqiao Li; Yong Gan; Hantao Liu; Zhilong Huang; Lisha He

Addresses: Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310027, China ' Laboratory of Energy and Environment and Computational Fluid Dynamics, North University of China, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030051, China ' Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310027, China ' Laboratory of Energy and Environment and Computational Fluid Dynamics, North University of China, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030051, China ' Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310027, China ' School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330031, China

Abstract: The material point method (MPM) and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) are two commonly used particle-based methods for solving large-deformation problems. Especially, the SPH has been widely applied to fluid dynamics problems, while the MPM performance in fluid dynamics simulations has rarely been investigated. In this study, the capabilities of the MPM and the SPH in simulating fluid dynamics problems have been quantitatively examined and compared through three example problems, i.e., Poiseuille and Couette flows and water dam break flows. Both numerical methods could yield the results in good agreements with the theoretical and experimental results. Without requiring neighbour search and additional boundary particles, the MPM exhibits significantly higher computational efficiency as compared with the SPH. The comparisons also demonstrate that the MPM has higher accuracy and faster convergence than the SPH. It is shown that the MPM could be a promising alternative to the SPH for the fluid dynamics simulations. Future work for the improvement of the MPM in fluid dynamics modelling is discussed.

Keywords: material point method; MPM; smoothed particle hydrodynamics; SPH; fluid flow problems; particle methods; computational fluid dynamics; Poiseuille flow; Couette flow; dam break flow.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2018.089497

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2018 Vol.18 No.1, pp.1 - 18

Received: 20 May 2016
Accepted: 11 Jul 2016

Published online: 29 Jan 2018 *

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