Energy based particle hydrodynamics for hypervelocity impact simulation

Hamiltonian mechanics provides a simple, systematic, energy based approach to the formulation of particle models for hypervelocity impact simulation. The methodology may be applied to particle models based either on mass points which define moving interpolations or on physical particles described by Lagrangian control volumes. Implementation of the method in a three dimensional computer code allows for the simulation of oblique hypervelocity impact on multi-plate orbital debris shield designs.