Impact analysis of arbitrarily‐shaped bodies using a finite element method and a smoothed particle hydrodynamics method

Abstract

Summary We propose a new method to obtain contact forces under a non‐smoothed contact problem between arbitrarily‐shaped bodies which are discretized by finite element method. Contact forces are calculated by the specific contact algorithm between two particles of smoothed particle hydrodynamics, which is a meshfree method, and that are applied to each colliding body. This approach has advantages that accurate contact forces can be obtained within an accelerated collision without a jump problem in a discrete time increment. Also, this can be simply applied into any contact problems like a point‐to‐point, a point‐to‐line, and a point‐to‐surface contact for complex shaped and deformable bodies. In order to describe this method, an impulse based method, a unilateral contact method and smoothed particle hydrodynamics method are firstly introduced in this paper. Then, a procedure about the proposed method is handled in great detail. Finally, accuracy of the proposed method is verified by a conservation of momentum through three contact examples. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.