Simulation of dynamic fluid–solid interactions with an improved direct-forcing immersed boundary method

Abstract

Dynamic fluid–solid interactions are widely found in chemical engineering, such as in particle-laden flows, which usually contain complex moving boundaries. The immersed boundary method (IBM) is a convenient approach to handle fluid–solid interactions with complex geometries. In this work, Uhlmann's direct-forcing IBM is improved and implemented on a supercomputer with CPU–GPU hybrid architecture. The direct-forcing IBM is modified as follows: the Poisson's equation for pressure is solved before evaluation of the body force, and the force is only distributed to the Cartesian grids inside the immersed boundary. A multidirect forcing scheme is used to evaluate the body force. These modifications result in a divergence-free flow field in the fluid domain and the no-slip boundary condition at the immersed boundary simultaneously. This method is implemented in an explicit finite-difference fractional-step scheme, and validated by 2D simulations of lid-driven cavity flow, Couette flow between two concentric cylinders and flow over a circular cylinder. Finally, the method is used to simulate the sedimentation of two circular particles in a channel. The results agree very well with previous experimental and numerical data, and are more accurate than the conventional direct-forcing method, especially in the vicinity of a moving boundary.