Novel particle distributions for SPH bird-strike simulations

Abstract

This paper is concerned with bird-strike numerical simulations using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method to represent the bird model. A comparison between bird models with classical mesh-based particle distributions and bird models with initial particle distributions generated using a technique based on the Weighted Voronoi Tessellation algorithm is presented. The adopted iteration technique to fill the bird model with particles is described. Particle distributions generated using this new technique are assessed in comparison with reference bird models commonly used in the literature. Results of generic bird-strike simulations on a flat target structure indicate the superiority of the proposed bird models over the bird models with classical mesh-based particle distributions in terms of flow behavior, conservation of total energy, normal forces, pressures, and computational efficiency.