A grid based particle method for moving interface problems

We propose a novel algorithm for modeling interface motions. The interface is represented and is tracked using quasi-uniform meshless particles. These particles are sampled according to an underlying grid such that each particle is associated to a grid point which is in the neighborhood of the interface. The underlying grid provides an Eulerian reference and local sampling rate for particles on the interface. It also renders neighborhood information among the meshless particles for local reconstruction of the interface. The resulting algorithm, which is based on Lagrangian tracking using meshless particles with Eulerian reference grid, can naturally handle/control topological changes. Moreover, adaptive sampling of the interface can be achieved easily through local grid refinement with simple quad/oct-tree data structure. Extensive numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the capability of our new algorithm. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.