Approximate Air-Fluid Interactions for SPH

Computing the forces acting from a surrounding air phase onto an SPH free-surface fluid is challenging. For full multiphase simulations the computational overhead is significant and stability issues due to the high density ratio may arise. In contrast, the air-fluid interactions can be approximated efficiently by employing a drag equation. Here, for plausible effects, the parameterization is important but challenging. We present an approach to calculate the parameters of the used drag equation in a physically motivated way. We approximate the deformation and occlusion of particles to determine their drag coefficient and exposed surface area. The resulting effects are validated by comparing them to the results of a multiphase SPH simulation. We further show the practicality of our approach by combining it with different types of SPH solvers and by simulating multiple, complex scenes.