HR: 0830h
AN: T31D-0873    [PDF]
TI: Tectonic Flows Modeled by the Method of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
AU: * Schwaiger, H F
EM: hschwaig@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Box 351310, Seattle, WA 98195-1310
AU: Willett, S D
EM: swillett@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Box 351310, Seattle, WA 98195-1310
AB: In order to study the flow of highly deformable yet heterogeneous material, we investigate the application of the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics modeling method to geophysical fluid dynamics. SPH is a grid-free, Lagrangian method that solves the continuum equations (continuity, momentum, energy) on a set of interpolation points (particles). These interpolation points correspond to representative volume elements which track the material points of the fluid and it's state variables (density, stress, temperature). The evolution of the state variables for a given volume element is calculated by considering the influence of each neighboring element and summing over all neighbors. Volume elements interact with boundaries through mirror particles which enforce a no-slip boundary condition by mirroring the element's material properties, stress and velocity. The method includes several advantages over irregular grid-based approaches including easy parallelization of the calculations and efficient tracking of material properties in regions of high deformation rate. We test two-dimensional, mechanical models of unconfined, viscous fluid flow for both quasi-static flows, applicable to tectonics, and dynamic flows such as landslides. Our SPH implementation is tested by comparing model results to analytic solutions for several confined and unconfined fluid flow problems. In particular, we compare our model with three test cases for homogeneous viscous flow; Poiseuille channel flow, Stoke's flow past a cylinder, and unconfined flow down an inclined plane.
DE: 3230 Numerical solutions
DE: 8110 Continental tectonics--general (0905)
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting