Practical simulation of hierarchical brittle fracture
A novel practical method for brittle fracture simulation is presented. Our fracture model is represented by a tree structure, and all elementary fracture pieces are hierarchically connected. Each node in a fracture tree has a glue table to define connections and strengths among its child nodes. With our hierarchical fracture method, one can control the whole process of fracture formulation and simulation in a more direct way. Given an input object, a hierarchical fracture pattern is constructed by a series of recursive decompositions where the variation of fragment sizes can be intuitively controlled through a drawing interface. A noise pattern is applied on the interfaces of fragments for adding a natural look. A new simple and practical fracture criterion is also introduced, and we capture the difference of virtual and inherited velocities of fracture nodes to break the connection. Our fracture criterion is fast and robust because it does not involve any matrix solves or finite element analysis that is essential in the prior fracturing algorithms. We implement the proposed method on a fluid solver by extending a rigid body interaction unit, and as a result, we achieve that the fracture objects can interact with fluid and ordinary rigid bodies in a fully two-way manner. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
fracture fluid rigid body