Asymmetric Adaptive Particle Refinement in SPH and Its Application in Soil Cutting Problems

Abstract

In this study, a novel asymmetric adaptive particle refinement algorithm in smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is developed for soil cutting problems. Each candidate particle that located at the cutting blade of the structure is split into two “children” particles to minimize the oscillation of the contact force. And thus reduce the local instability. To minimize the density refinement error, a numerical method to determine the optimal smoothing lengths for “children” particles is given. To verify the accuracy of proposed algorithm, the adaptive refinement procedure are implemented into two models: one for soil cutting test on plane strain condition and the other for sample drilling test on axisymmetric condition. The observed flow pattern of the soil and contact forces are compared with laboratory experimental data available in the literature. Results indicate that the proposed asymmetric adaptive refinement algorithm could significantly avoid severe local instability and contributes to high-accuracy simulation.