In-Timestep Remeshing for Contacting Elastodynamics

Zachary Ferguson, Teseo Schneider, Danny M. Kaufman^† Daniele Panozzo^† (^†Joint last authors)

We propose a fully coupled, adaptive meshing algorithm for contacting elastodynamics where remeshing steps are tightly integrated, implicitly, within the time-step solve. Our algorithm refines and coarsens the domain automatically by measuring physical energy changes within each ongoing time-step solve. This provides consistent, efficient, and productive remeshing that, by construction, is physics-aware and so avoids the errors, over-refinements, artifacts, per-example hand-tuning, and instabilities commonly encountered when remeshing in time-stepping methods. Our in-time-step computation then ensures that each simulation step’s output is both a converged, stable solution on the updated mesh, and a temporally consistent trajectory with respect to the model and solution of the last time step. At the same time, the output is guaranteed safe (intersection- and inversion-free) across all operations. We demonstrate applications across a wide range of extreme stress tests with challenging contacts, sharp geometries, extreme compressions, large time steps, and wide material stiffness ranges – all scenarios well-appreciated to challenge existing remeshing methods.

In-Timestep Remeshing for Contacting Elastodynamics