Smoothed particle hydrodynamics: Some recent improvements and applications

The Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) computing technique has features which make it highly attractive for simulating dynamic response of materials involving fracture and fragmentation. However, full exploitation of the method's potential has been hampered by some unresolved problems including stability and the lack of generalized boundary conditions. We address these difficulties and propose solutions. Continuum damage modeling of fracture is discussed at length with scalar and tensor formulations proposed and tested within SPH. Several recent applications involving fracture with predicted fragment patterns and mass distributions are compared with experiment.