A study of the stability properties in simulation of wave propagation with SPH method

Abstract

When ordinary Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is used to simulate wave propagation in a wave tank, it is usually observed that the wave height decays and the wave length elongates along the direction of wave propagation. Accompanied with this phenomenon, the pressure under water decays either and shows a big oscillation simultaneously. The reason is the natural potential tensile instability of modeling water motion with ordinary SPH which is caused by particle negative stress in the computation. To deal with the problems, a new sextic kernel function is proposed to reduce this instability. An appropriate smooth length is given and its computation criterion is also suggested. At the same time, a new kind dynamic boundary condition is introduced. Based on these improvements, the new SPH method named stability improved SPH (SISPH) can simulate the wave propagation well. Both the water surface and pressure can be well expressed and the oscillation of pressure is nearly eliminated. Compared with other improved methods, SISPH can truly reveal the physical reality without bringing some new problems in a simple way.