Simulation of container filling process with two inlets by improved smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method

Abstract

In this article, an improved smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is proposed to simulate the filling process with two inlets. Improvements are achieved by deriving a corrected kernel gradient of SPH and a density re-initialisation. In addition, a new treatment of solid wall boundaries is presented. Thus, the improved SPH method has higher accuracy and better stability, and conserves both linear and angular momentums. The validity of the new boundary treatment is shown by simulating the spin-down problem. The bench tests are also presented to demonstrate the performance of the improved SPH method. Then the filling process with a single inlet is simulated to show the ability to capture complex-free surface of the proposed method. Finally, the filling process with two inlets is numerically investigated. The numerical results show that the filling patterns are affected significantly by Reynolds number, aspect ratio of the container and the location of the inlets.