Coupling SPH with a mesh-based Eulerian approach for simulation of incompressible free-surface flows

Abstract

This paper presents a coupling algorithm for the simulation of incompressible free-surface flows over the near and far fields by solving the Navier-Stokes equations. The coupling combines the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) with the Finite Difference (FD) method implemented on structured Eulerian grids. Based on the domain decomposition, the SPH is applied to the near-field core region for modeling with high-fidelity the severe free-surface deformation and even fragmentation of flow, while the FD method is used to resolve the remaining far-field region with relatively high efficiency. The primary purpose of the hybrid approach is to mitigate the computational load of SPH applications through combination with a mesh-based Eulerian method while maintaining high accuracy for both the near-field and far-field simulations. Two-way coupling between the FD and SPH models is achieved by the overlapping region between the computational subdomains, in which the Eulerian solutions and the Lagrangian solutions are coupled with each other through interpolation in the overlapping region for the fluid transfer and free-surface movement between the near-field and far-field regions. The proposed algorithm is validated by several test cases, showing favorable accuracy, convergence, and applicability in the simulation of wave interactions with complex bathymetry and structures.