SMOOTHED PARTICLE HYDRODYNAMICS (SPH) IN CFD

Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) was developed to study problems in the field of astrophysics [1]. However, a significant number of developments have enabled application within industry to be particularly attractive; for example naval hydrodynamics, turbomachinery, hydraulic engineering, ocean engineering and aerospace applications. The meshfree SPH technique facilitates the simulation of highly distorted fluids/bodies. Thus, research areas such as free-surface flows, where Eulerian methods can be difficult to apply, represent a range of applications of great potential (waves, impact on dams, off-shore...). It is becoming generally accepted that SPH represents a significant step forward in numerical simulation of both solid mechanics and fluid dynamics applications. This is shown by the number of large scale National and European initiatives that now hold the keyword SPH. Moreover, according to Scopus more than 800 research papers on this topic have been published only since 2010. The three co-organizers are experts on the topic and very active promoters in the development and use of SPH methods for CFD applications. They are the core developers of the SPH free software packages known as SPHysics. They were the editors of the special issue “SPH for free-surface flows” published by the Journal of Hydraulic Research [2], which compiled a set of research papers showing different developments of SPH techniques and its applications in problems involving free-surface flows. Two of them, Dr. B.D. Rogers and Prof. M. GomezGesteira, are members of the steering committee of SPHERIC, the international organisation that provides a framework for closer co-operation among research groups working on the subject, serving as a platform for the information exchange from science to industry.