Fluid‐structure interaction with fully coupled mesh generation

Abstract

AbstractThe modeling and simulation of fluid‐structure interaction (FSI) involve the two‐way coupling of a fluid flow and a deforming structure. The fluid exerts a load on the structure, the structure deforms, and, hence, the fluid flow changes, which leads to an altered loading on the structure. To accomplish this coupling, the fluid domain has to be updated after each time step, leading to a change in the fluid mesh. Various mesh update methods have been presented where an initial mesh is generated and then updated after each time step. Each method comes with different levels of complexity and has its own advantages and disadvantages. Herein, FSI simulations with fully integrated mesh generation, rather than updates, are proposed. Instead of updating the mesh at each time step, a new mesh for the fluid domain is generated based on the deformation of the solid domain. An advanced structured meshing algorithm, based on a block structure, enables this integrated mesh generation approach. An initial set of coarse‐scale conforming blocks is generated by the user, representing the topology and rough initial position of the solid and the fluid. Further information is the exact geometry at the boundary and the deformed position of the fluid‐structure interface, plus grading information to obtain a high‐quality fluid mesh. Transfinite maps are used to generate elements inside the blocks with any desired resolution and order.