High Strain Lagrangian Hydrodynamics. A Three-Dimensional SPH Code for Dynamic Material Response

MAGI, a three-dimensional shock and material response code which is based on smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is described. Calculations are presented and compared with experimental results. The SPH method is unique in that it employs no spatial mesh. The absence of a grid leads to some nice features such as the ability to handle large distortions in a pure Lagrangian frame and a natural treatment of voids. Both of these features are important in the tracking of debris clouds produced by hypervelocity impact—a difficult problem for which SPH seems ideally suited. We believe this is the first application of SPH to the dynamics of elastic-plastic solids.