Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics
Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a mesh-free, Lagrangian computational method used for simulating fluid dynamics and other continuum mechanics problems. It represents a fluid or solid as a set of discrete particles that carry properties like mass, density, and velocity, with interactions smoothed using kernel functions. SPH is particularly effective for handling large deformations, free surfaces, and complex geometries in simulations.
Developers should learn SPH when working on simulations in fields like astrophysics, oceanography, computer graphics, or engineering, where traditional grid-based methods (e.g., finite element analysis) struggle with moving boundaries or fragmentation. It's essential for applications such as fluid animation in movies, crash simulations in automotive design, or modeling astrophysical phenomena like star formation, due to its ability to handle complex, dynamic systems without a fixed mesh.