The Meshfree Radial Point Interpolation Method (RPIM) for Wave Propagation Dynamics in Non-Homogeneous Media

Abstract

This work presents a novel simulation approach to couple the meshfree radial point interpolation method (RPIM) with the implicit direct time integration method for the transient analysis of wave propagation dynamics in non-homogeneous media. In this approach, the RPIM is adopted for the discretization of the overall space domain, while the discretization of the time domain is completed by employing the efficient Bathe time stepping scheme. The dispersion analysis demonstrates that, in wave analysis, the amount of numerical dispersion error resulting from the discretization in the space domain can be suppressed at a very low level when the employed nodal support domain of the interpolation function is adequately large. Meanwhile, it is also mathematically shown that the amount of numerical error resulting from the time domain discretization is actually a monotonically decreasing function of the non-dimensional time domain discretization interval. Consequently, the present simulation approach is capable of effectively handling the transient analysis of wave propagation dynamics in non-homogeneous media, and the disparate waves with different speeds can be solved concurrently with very high computation accuracy. This numerical feature makes the present simulation approach more suitable for complicated wave analysis than the traditional finite element approach because the waves with disparate speeds always cannot be concurrently solved accurately. Several numerical tests are given to check the performance of the present simulation approach for the analysis of wave propagation dynamics in non-homogeneous media.