Smoothed particle hydrodynamics

Mar 1, 2026 · 1 min read
research

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a mesh-free Lagrangian particle method that represents physical quantities using a smoothing kernel and solves the hydrodynamic conservation equations for mass, momentum, and energy. The SPH method has been widely used to model hypervelocity impacts and tidal responses of planetary bodies.

Our SPH code incorporates various physical models including equation of state, material strength, fragmentation, porosity, self-gravity, tidal forces, and etc. A release version of the code is publicly available now! See this documentation for details https://sphsol-tutorial.readthedocs.io.

Y. Jiao, X. Yan, B. Cheng, et al. SPH-DEM modeling of hypervelocity impacts on rubble-pile asteroids. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023)

Numerical Method
Yifei Jiao
Authors
Yifei Jiao (he/him)
Postdoc in planetary science
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at University of California Santa Cruz and Tsinghua University. My research interests are focused on the collisional and dynamical evolution of small planetary bodies, rings, and moons. I developed a open-source SPH code for simulating hypervelocity impacts and tidal responses of planetary bodies. I am eager to exploring any unsolved exciting questions of our solar system using theoretical and numerical methods and open to collaborations. Feel free to contact me at jiaoyf.thu@gmail.com for any discussions!