UCLA

Accurate and robust simulation of solid and fluid dynamics with their interactions is non-trivial in computer graphics. In this thesis, we present a robust and efficient method for simulating Lagrangian solid-fluid coupling based on a new operator splitting strategy. We use variational formulations to approximate fluid properties and solid-fluid interactions, and introduce a unified two-way coupling formulation for SPH fluids and FEM solids using interior point barrier-based frictional contact. We split the resulting optimization problem into a fluid phase and a solid-coupling phase using a novel time-splitting approach with augmented \emph{contact proxies}, and propose efficient custom linear solvers. Our technique accounts for fluids interaction with nonlinear hyperelastic objects of different geometries and codimensions, while maintaining an algorithmically guaranteed non-penetrating criterion. Comprehensive benchmarks and experiments demonstrate the efficacy of our method.