A Virtual Heat Flux Method for Simple and Accurate Neumann Thermal Boundary Imposition in the Material Point Method

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Yu, Jidu, Zhao, Jidong
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Yu, Jidu
Zhao, Jidong
author_facet Yu, Jidu
Zhao, Jidong
contents In the Material Point Method (MPM), accurately imposing Neumann-type thermal boundary conditions, particularly convective heat flux boundaries, remains a significant challenge due to the inherent nonconformity between complex evolving material boundaries and the fixed background grid. This paper introduces a novel Virtual Heat Flux Method (VHFM) to overcome this limitation. The core idea is to construct a virtual flux field on an auxiliary domain surrounding the physical boundary, which exactly satisfies the prescribed boundary condition. This transforms the surface integral in the weak form into an equivalent, and easily computed, volumetric integral. Consequently, VHFM eliminates the need for explicit boundary tracking, specialized boundary particles, or complex surface reconstruction. A unified formulation is presented, demonstrating the method's straightforward extension to general scalar, vector, and tensor Neumann conditions. The accuracy, robustness, and convergence of VHFM are rigorously validated through a series of numerical benchmarks, including 1D transient analysis, 2D and 3D curved boundaries, and problems with large rotations and complex moving geometries. The results show that VHFM achieves accuracy comparable to conforming node-based imposition and significantly outperforms conventional particle-based approaches. Its simplicity, computational efficiency, and robustness make it an attractive solution for integrating accurate thermal boundary conditions into thermo-mechanical and other multiphysics MPM frameworks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04570
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Virtual Heat Flux Method for Simple and Accurate Neumann Thermal Boundary Imposition in the Material Point Method
Yu, Jidu
Zhao, Jidong
Mathematical Physics
Numerical Analysis
In the Material Point Method (MPM), accurately imposing Neumann-type thermal boundary conditions, particularly convective heat flux boundaries, remains a significant challenge due to the inherent nonconformity between complex evolving material boundaries and the fixed background grid. This paper introduces a novel Virtual Heat Flux Method (VHFM) to overcome this limitation. The core idea is to construct a virtual flux field on an auxiliary domain surrounding the physical boundary, which exactly satisfies the prescribed boundary condition. This transforms the surface integral in the weak form into an equivalent, and easily computed, volumetric integral. Consequently, VHFM eliminates the need for explicit boundary tracking, specialized boundary particles, or complex surface reconstruction. A unified formulation is presented, demonstrating the method's straightforward extension to general scalar, vector, and tensor Neumann conditions. The accuracy, robustness, and convergence of VHFM are rigorously validated through a series of numerical benchmarks, including 1D transient analysis, 2D and 3D curved boundaries, and problems with large rotations and complex moving geometries. The results show that VHFM achieves accuracy comparable to conforming node-based imposition and significantly outperforms conventional particle-based approaches. Its simplicity, computational efficiency, and robustness make it an attractive solution for integrating accurate thermal boundary conditions into thermo-mechanical and other multiphysics MPM frameworks.
title A Virtual Heat Flux Method for Simple and Accurate Neumann Thermal Boundary Imposition in the Material Point Method
topic Mathematical Physics
Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04570