A study of the stability properties of smooth particle hydrodynamics

When using a formulation of smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) which conserves momentum exactly the motion of the particles is observed to be unstable to negative stress. It is also found that under normal circumstances a lattice of SPH particles is potentially unstable to transverse waves. This paper is a summary of a detailed report (Morris 1994) investigating the nature of these and other instabilities in depth. Approaches which may be used to eliminate these instabilities are suggested. It is found that the stability properties of SPH in general improve as higher-order spline interpolants, approximating a Gaussian, are used as kernels.