CEL Simulation

Simulation

This was a side project in the PhD days, maybe brought about by going to parties while still thinking about some of the fluid simulations I was doing in the day.

The material models were simple linear elastic, based on some quasi-static tensile testing, and I made a few assumptions for Poissons ratio and friction. The fluid was represented with volume fraction elements in a Eulerian domain that scaled and moved with the cup geometry.

It looks decent. I like the way the water, ball and cup seem to rotate around a common center of mass. The three interacting bodies made me think of the 3-body problem, or n-body problem in astrophysics about predicting the position of space bodies after some amount of time of gravitational interaction. I’m not sure if it’s a totally legitimate comparison, but in each case, numerical simulation is the way to go!