Recent Developments in LS-DYNA® S-ALE

The LS-DYNA ALE/FSI package is widely used in studying structures under blast loading. Generally, the ALE mesh is necessarily unstructured to accommodate complex geometries; however, for simple rectilinear geometries, a structured, logically regular, mesh can be utilized. Recognition of this latter case leads to algorithmic simplifications, memory reductions, and performance enhancements, which are impossible in unstructured mesh geometries. In 2015, LS-DYNA introduced a new structured ALE (S-ALE) solver option dedicated to solve the subset of ALE problems where a structured mesh is appropriate. As expected, recognizing the logical regularity of the mesh brought a reduced simulation time for the case of identical structured and unstructured mesh definitions. In this paper we will introduce the new developments and enhancements in LS-DYNA S-ALE for the past two years.