Unified Pressure, Surface Tension and Friction for SPH Fluids

Abstract

Fluid droplets behave significantly different from larger fluid bodies. At smaller scales, surface tension and friction between fluids and the boundary play an essential role and are even able to counteract gravitational forces. There are quite a few existing approaches that model surface tension forces within an SPH environment. However, as often as not, physical correctness and simulation stability are still major concerns with many surface tension formulations. We propose a new approach to compute surface tension that is both robust and produces the right amount of surface tension. Conversely, less attention was given to friction forces at the fluid-boundary interface. Recent experimental research indicates that Coulomb friction can be used to describe the behavior of droplets resting on a slope. Motivated by this, we develop a novel friction force formulation at the fluid-boundary interface following the Coulomb model, which allows us to replicate a new range of well known fluid behavior such as the motion of rain droplets on a window pane. Both forces are combined with an IISPH variant into one unified solver that is able to simultaneously compute strongly coupled surface tension, friction and pressure forces.