Application of meshless methods to manufacturing processes

Meshless methods represent an alternative way for engineers and scientist to solve partial differential equations. Typically these equations are the conservations of mass, momentum and energy in continuum mechanics. The applicability of meshless methods to manufacturing processes is presented in this work in order to determine the efficacy of meshless methods in a real world setting. A review of the current state of meshless methods in the literature is conducted to reveal the potential but limited applications of meshless methods in the manufacturing field. A comparison of meshless and mesh based results is used to benchmark the accuracy of meshless methods for a manufacturing process. These include severe plastic deformation for improving material properties and the formation of a composite metallic material. Novel applications to the simulation of damage during dynamic loading are also simulated to highlight the importance of combining factors in material failure. These processes are simulated using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and the Material Point Method (MPM). Results show that these meshless methods are a viable and effective tool for simulating manufacturing processes and can exhibit advantages to the mesh based methods currently in use.