Publications

A stable and nodally integrated meshfree formulation for modeling shock waves in fluids is developed. The reproducing kernel approximation is employed to discretize the conservation equations for compressible flow, and a flux vector splitting approach is applied to allow proper numerical treatments for the advection and pressure parts, respectively, based on the characteristics of each flux term. To capture the essential shock physics in fluids, including the Rankine–Hugoniot jump conditions and the entropy condition, local Riemann enrichment is introduced under the stabilized conforming nodal integration (SCNI) framework. Meanwhile, numerical instabilities associated with the advection flux are eliminated by adopting a modified upwind scheme. To further enhance accuracy, a MUSCL-type method is introduced in conjunction with an oscillation limiter to avoid Gibbs phenomenon and ensure monotonic piecewise linear reconstruction in the smooth region. The present meshfree formulation is free from tunable artificial parameters and is capable of capturing shock and rarefaction waves without over/undershoots. Several numerical examples are analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed MUSCL-SCNI approach in meshfree modeling of complex shock phenomena, including shock diffraction, shock–vortex interaction, and high energy explosion processes.

We propose new projection methods for treating near-incompressibility in small and large deformation elasticity and plasticity within the framework of particle and meshfree methods. Using the B¯ and F¯ techniques as our point of departure, we develop projection methods for the conforming reproducing kernel method and the immersed-particle or material point-like methods. The methods are based on the projection of the dilatational part of the appropriate measure of deformation onto lower-dimensional approximation spaces, according to the traditional B¯ and F¯ approaches, but tailored to meshfree and particle methods. The presented numerical examples exhibit reduced stress oscillations and are free of volumetric locking and hourglassing phenomena.

Window functions provide a base for the construction of approximation functions in many meshfree methods. They control the smoothness and extent of the approximation functions and are commonly defined using Euclidean distances which helps eliminate the need for a meshed discretization, simplifying model development for some classes of problems. However, for problems with complicated geometries such as nonconvex or multi-body domains, poor solution accuracy and convergence can occur unless the extents of the window functions, and thus approximation functions, are carefully controlled, often a time consuming or intractable task. In this paper, we present a method to provide more control in window function design, allowing efficient and systematic handling of complex geometries. “Conforming” window functions are constructed using Bernstein–Bézier splines defined on local triangulations with constraints imposed to control smoothness. Graph distances are used in conjunction with Euclidean metrics to provide adequate information for shaping the window functions. The conforming window functions are demonstrated using the Reproducing Kernel Particle Method showing improved accuracy and convergence rates for problems with challenging geometries. Conforming window functions are also demonstrated as a means to simplify the imposition of essential boundary conditions.