A full Eulerian finite difference approach for solving fluid-structure coupling problems

A new simulation method for solving fluid-structure coupling problems has been developed. All the basic equations are numerically solved on a fixed Cartesian grid using a finite difference scheme. A volume-of-fluid formulation (Hirt and Nichols (1981, J. Comput. Phys., 39, 201)), which has been widely used for multiphase flow simulations, is applied to describing the multi-component geometry. The temporal change in the solid deformation is described in the Eulerian frame by updating a left Cauchy-Green deformation tensor, which is used to express constitutive equations for nonlinear Mooney-Rivlin materials. In this paper, various verifications and validations of the present full Eulerian method, which solves the fluid and solid motions on a fixed grid, are demonstrated, and the numerical accuracy involved in the fluid-structure coupling problems is examined.Comment: 38 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication in J. Comput. Phy

A General, Mass-Preserving Navier-Stokes Projection Method

The conservation of mass is common issue with multiphase fluid simulations. In this work a novel projection method is presented which conserves mass both locally and globally. The fluid pressure is augmented with a time-varying component which accounts for any global mass change. The resulting system of equations is solved using an efficient Schur-complement method. Using the proposed method four numerical examples are performed: the evolution of a static bubble, the rise of a bubble, the breakup of a thin fluid thread, and the extension of a droplet in shear flow. The method is capable of conserving the mass even in situations with morphological changes such as droplet breakup.Comment: Submitted to Computer Physics Communication