Impulse-based rigid body interaction in SPH

A new boundary force is proposed to solve rigid body interaction in SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics). The new boundary force is impulse-based rather than potential-based. The impulse is converted to a boundary force with a fundamental observation that the impulse is a momentum change which is a result of a force acting on an object during a time interval. Our new impulse-based boundary force gives more stable and accurate results in all kinds of rigid body interactions, especially in rigid–rigid interaction since our boundary force faithfully reflects the dynamic features of rigid body. With our impulse-based boundary force, SPH fluid solver is capable of full two way interaction of fluid and rigid body and it turns to be a particle-based rigid body solver if only rigid bodies are simulated without fluid. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.