Divide and Truncate: A Penetration and Inversion Free Framework for Coupled Multi-physics Systems

2026-04-16

AI Summary

This work proposes a material- and solver-agnostic unified contact handling framework to address common challenges in multiphysics coupled simulations—namely, object interpenetration, artificial damping, and simulation lock-ups. The method enforces non-penetration through spatially exclusive partitioning and displacement clamping, while a Planar-DAT variant is introduced to constrain only normal motion, thereby preserving tangential degrees of freedom. Designed as a post-processing step, the framework seamlessly integrates with any iterative optimizer and supports efficient coupling of diverse entities, including rigid bodies, deformable solids, thin shells, rods, and animated objects. Experimental results demonstrate that the approach significantly enhances the robustness, stability, and physical fidelity of multi-body interactions in complex simulations.

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• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
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Abstract

We present Divide and Truncate (DAT), a unified framework for coupling multi-physics systems through penetration-free collision handling, including rigid bodies, volumetric soft bodies, thin shells, rods, and animated objects. By partitioning the ambient space into exclusive regions and truncating displacements to remain within them, DAT guarantees penetration-free contact resolution. Our \emph{Planar-DAT} variant further refines this by restricting only motion toward nearby surfaces, leaving tangential movement unconstrained, which addresses the artificial damping and deadlock problems of previous works. The framework is material-agnostic: each object responds to contact without knowledge of the opposing body's physics. Our method is also solver-agnostic; it can be integrated seamlessly with any iterative optimizer as a post-processing step, enabling robust simulation of complex multi-body interactions.

Problem

• penetration-free
• multi-physics coupling
• contact resolution
• collision handling
• inversion-free

Innovation

• penetration-free
• multi-physics coupling
• Divide and Truncate
• Planar-DAT
• solver-agnostic