Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) for free-surface flows: past, present and future

TLDR

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a Lagrangian meshless method effective for highly nonlinear fluid‑dynamic problems such as wave breaking, impact, multi‑phase mixing, jet impact, sloshing, flooding, tsunami inundation, and fluid–structure interactions. The paper evaluates recent trends in SPH for free‑surface flow modeling, identifies key challenges for academia and industry, and proposes a future roadmap. It reviews advances in SPH, covering numerical formulations, operators, remedies to classical formulation problems, stability‑enhancing methods, boundary conditions, multi‑fluid approaches, particle adaptivity, and hardware acceleration.

Abstract

This paper assesses some recent trends in the novel numerical meshless method smoothed particle hydrodynamics, with particular focus on its potential use in modelling free-surface flows. Due to its Lagrangian nature, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) appears to be effective in solving diverse fluid-dynamic problems with highly nonlinear deformation such as wave breaking and impact, multi-phase mixing processes, jet impact, sloshing, flooding and tsunami inundation, and fluid–structure interactions. The paper considers the key areas of rapid progress and development, including the numerical formulations, SPH operators, remedies to problems within the classical formulations, novel methodologies to improve the stability and robustness of the method, boundary conditions, multi-fluid approaches, particle adaptivity, and hardware acceleration. The key ongoing challenges in SPH that must be addressed by academic research and industrial users are identified and discussed. Finally, a roadmap is proposed for the future developments.