Handling Overlapping Collisions: A Dynamic Topology Approach
Fernando J. Barros · 2017
Modeling multiple simultaneous collisions is a complex task. While good approximations exist for collisions involving two bodies, when three or more bodies collide at the same time, the resultant system can no longer be represented using simplified models based on energy and momentum conservation laws. In this paper we exploit a general solution for the multiple collision problem based on the theory of elasticity. For achieving this goal, we exploit HyFlow formalism support for representing dynamic topology models. In particular, incremental topologies can be defined in HyFlow, and enable the description of an unbounded number of topologies without requiring their complete enumeration before simulation. In same systems, like the Newton cradle for example, the number of topologies is ∝ O(2N), where N is the number of balls, making it virtually impossible to employ traditional switching methods for a large N.