Any physical engine free and open source?

[Zachary Liu]

Hi,

I'm trying to simulate the ship traveling in ice. Basically, I would like to assume that the rigid body dynamics is sufficient to do the job since the main point here is the interactions between rigid ice fragments and the rigid ship. The fluid interactions with ice fragments should be considered, so is the ship and water. The problem is purely 3D, all the motions should be taken into consideration.

The reason that I don't want to use FEM to do this is that there are still lack of good theories ( continuum theory) to describe the ice fracture and it is also time consuming if the model is big. Instead, a user-defined crack may be predefined in the physical engine by assuming some reasonable criterion (I mean, if that is appliable). And then do the simulation, which is doing some kind of tricks to the practical physics. However, the user-defined crack should be based on real failure patterns of course.

I hope i have made myself clear. Are there some open platform that are available for me to use? Does anyone have any idea? Any comments are welcome.

Rgds
Zach.

 

[lofgran]

Hi Zach,

Your project sounds very interesting and challenging. You are correct in assuming that rigid body dynamics would be sufficient for simulating the interactions between the ship and ice fragments. However, as you mentioned, the fluid interactions with the ice fragments, ship, and water will also need to be taken into consideration. This can be achieved through the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

There are several open source CFD software packages available, such as OpenFOAM and SU2, that you could use for your simulations. These packages have the capability to simulate fluid interactions with rigid bodies and also allow for user-defined cracks and failure patterns. They also have the advantage of being able to handle 3D simulations efficiently.

Another option would be to use a commercial software package such as ANSYS or COMSOL, which also have the capability to simulate fluid-structure interactions and user-defined failure criteria. However, these packages may be more expensive and may require a license for use.

I would recommend doing some research on these software packages and their capabilities to determine which one would be the best fit for your project. Additionally, I would suggest consulting with other researchers or experts in the field of ice mechanics to get their insights and recommendations on the best approach for your simulation.

Best of luck with your project!