Impact modeling with smooth particle hydrodynamics

Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) can be used to model hypervelocity impact phenomena via the addition of a strength of materials treatment. SPH is the only technique that can model such problems efficiently due to the combination of 3-dimensional geometry, large translations of material, large deformations, and large void fractions for most problems of interest. This makes SPH an ideal candidate for modeling of asteroid impact, spacecraft shield modeling, and planetary accretion. In this paper we describe the derivation of the strength equations in SPH, show several basic code tests, and present several impact test cases with experimental comparisons.