Material point method: Overview and challenges ahead

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of Material Point Method and shows its evolution over the last 25 years. The Material Point Method developments followed a logical order. The article aims at identifying this order and show not only the current state of the art, but explain the drivers behind the developments and identify what is currently still missing. The paper explores modern implementations of both explicit and implicit Material Point Method. It concentrates mainly on uses of the method in engineering, but also gives a short overview of Material Point Method application in computer graphics and animation. Furthermore, the article gives overview of errors in the material point method algorithms, as well as identify gaps in knowledge, filling which would hopefully lead to a much more efficient and accurate Material Point Method. The paper also briefly discusses algorithms related to contact and boundaries, coupling the Material Point Method with other numerical methods and modeling of fractures. It also gives an overview of modeling of multi-phase continua with Material Point Method. The paper closes with numerical examples, aiming at showing the capabilities of Material Point Method in advanced simulations. Those include landslide modeling, multiphysics simulation of shaped charge explosion and simulations of granular material flow out of a silo undergoing changes from continuous to discontinuous and back to continuous behavior. The paper uniquely illustrates many of the developments not only with figures but also with videos, giving the whole extend of simulation instead of just a timestamped image.