Hybrid finite difference/finite element immersed boundary method

The immersed boundary method is an approach to fluid-structure interaction that uses a Lagrangian description of the structural deformations, stresses, and forces along with an Eulerian description of the momentum, viscosity, and incompressibility of the fluid-structure system. The original immersed boundary methods described immersed elastic structures using systems of flexible fibers, and even now, most immersed boundary methods still require Lagrangian meshes that are finer than the Eulerian grid. This work introduces a coupling scheme for the immersed boundary method to link the Lagrangian and Eulerian variables that facilitates independent spatial discretizations for the structure and background grid. This approach employs a finite element discretization of the structure while retaining a finite difference scheme for the Eulerian variables. We apply this method to benchmark problems involving elastic, rigid, and actively contracting structures, including an idealized model of the left ventricle of the heart. Our tests include cases in which, for a fixed Eulerian grid spacing, coarser Lagrangian structural meshes yield discretization errors that are as much as several orders of magnitude smaller than errors obtained using finer structural meshes. The Lagrangian-Eulerian coupling approach developed in this work enables the effective use of these coarse structural meshes with the immersed boundary method. This work also contrasts two different weak forms of the equations, one of which is demonstrated to be more effective for the coarse structural discretizations facilitated by our coupling approach

Lagrangian FE methods for coupled problems in fluid mechanics

This work aims at developing formulations and algorithms where maximum advantage of using Lagrangian finite element fluid formulations can be taken. In particular we concentrate our attention at fluid-structure interaction and thermally coupled applications, most of which originate from practical “real-life” problems. Two fundamental options are investigated - coupling two Lagrangian formulations (e.g. Lagrangian fluid and Lagrangian structure) and coupling the Lagrangian and Eulerian fluid formulations. In the first part of this work the basic concepts of the Lagrangian fluids, the so-called Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) [1], [2] are presented. These include nodal variable storage, mesh re-construction using Delaunay triangulation/tetrahedralization and alpha shape-based method for identification of the computational domain boundaries. This shall serve as a general basis for all the further developments of this work.Postprint (published version

Unified Lagrangian formulation for fluid and solid mechanics, fluid-structure interaction and coupled thermal problems using the PFEM

The objective of this thesis is the derivation and implementation of a unified Finite Element formulation for the solution of uid and solid mechanics, Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) and coupled thermal problems. The unified procedure is based on a stabilized velocity-pressure Lagrangian formulation. Each time step increment is solved using a two-step Gauss-Seidel scheme: first the linear momentum equations are solved for the velocity increments, next the continuity equation is solved for the pressure in the updated configuration. The Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) is used for the fluid domains, while the Finite Element Method (FEM) is employed for the solid ones. As a consequence, the domain is remeshed only in the parts occupied by the fluid. Linear shape functions are used for both the velocity and the pressure fields. In order to deal with the incompressibility of the materials, the formulation has been stabilized using an updated version of the Finite Calculus (FIC) method. The procedure has been derived for quasi-incompressible Newtonian fluids. In this work, the FIC stabilization procedure has been extended also to the analysis of quasi-incompressible hypoelastic solids. Specific attention has been given to the study of free surface flow problems. In particular, the mass preservation feature of the PFEM-FIC stabilized procedure has been deeply studied with the help of several numerical examples. Furthermore, the conditioning of the problem has been analyzed in detail describing the effect of the bulk modulus on the numerical scheme. A strategy based on the use of a pseudo bulk modulus for improving the conditioning of the linear system is also presented. The unified formulation has been validated by comparing its numerical results to experimental tests and other numerical solutions for fluid and solid mechanics, and FSI problems. The convergence of the scheme has been also analyzed for most of the problems presented. The unified formulation has been coupled with the heat tranfer problem using a staggered scheme. A simple algorithm for simulating phase change problems is also described. The numerical solution of several FSI problems involving the temperature is given. The thermal coupled scheme has been used successfully for the solution of an industrial problem. The objective of study was to analyze the damage of a nuclear power plant pressure vessel induced by a high viscous fluid at high temperature, the corium. The numerical study of this industrial problem has been included in the thesis.El objectivo de la presente tesis es la derivación e implementación de una formulación unificada con elementos finitos para la solución de problemas de mecánica de fluidos y de sólidos, interacción fluido-estructura (Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI)) y con acoplamiento térmico. El método unificado està basado en una formulación Lagrangiana estabilizada y las variables incognitas son las velocidades y la presión. Cada paso de tiempo se soluciona a través de un esquema de dos pasos de tipo Gauss-Seidel. Primero se resuelven las ecuaciones de momento lineal por los incrementos de velocidad, luego se calculan las presiones en la configuración actualizada usando la ecuación de continuidad. Para los dominios fluidos se utiliza el método de elementos finitos de partículas (Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM)) mientras que los sólidos se solucionan con el método de elementos finitos (Finite Element Method (FEM)). Por lo tanto, se ramalla sólo las partes del dominio ocupadas por el fluido. Los campos de velocidad y presión se interpolan con funciones de forma lineales. Para poder analizar materiales incompresibles, la formulación ha sido estabilizada con una nueva versión del método Finite Calculus (FIC). La técnica de estabilización ha sido derivada para fluidos Newtonianos casi-incompresibles. En este trabajo, la estabilización con FIC se usa también para el análisis de sólidos hipoelásticos casi-incompresibles. En la tesis se dedica particular atención al estudio de flujo con superficie libre. En particular, se analiza en profundidad el tema de las pérdidas de masa y se muestra con varios ejemplos numéricos la capacidad del método de garantizar la conservación de masa en problemas de flujos en supeficie libre. Además se estudia con detalle el condicionamiento del esquema numérico analizando particularmente el efecto del módulo de compresibilidad. Se presenta también una estrategia basada en el uso de un pseudo módulo de compresibilidad para mejorar el condicionamiento del problema. La formulación unificada ha sido validada comparando sus resultados numéricos con pruebas de laboratorio y resultados numéricos de otras formulaciones. En la mayoría de los ejemplos también se ha estudiado la convergencia del método. En la tesis también se describe una estrategia segregada para el acoplamiento de la formulación unificada con el problema de transmisión de calor. Además se presenta una simple estrategia para simular el cambio de fase. El esquema acoplado ha sido utilizado para resolver varios problemas de FSI donde se incluye la temperatura y su efecto. El esquema acoplado con el problema térmico ha sido utilizado con éxito para resolver un problema industrial. El objetivo del estudio era la simulación del daño y la fusión de la vasija de un reactor nuclear provocados por el contacto con un fluido altamente viscoso y a gran temperatura. En la tesis se describe con detalle el estudio numérico realizado para esta aplicación industrialPostprint (published version

Application of immersed boundary method to rlexible riser problem

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityIn the recent decades the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problem has been of great interest to many researchers and a variety of methods have been proposed for its numerical simulation. As FSI simulation is a multi-discipline and a multi-physics problem, its full simulation consists of many details and sub-procedures. On the other hand, reliable FSI simulations are required in various applications ranging from hemo-dynamics and structural engineering to aero-elasticity. In hemo-dynamics an incompressible fluid is coupled with a flexible structure with similar density (e.g. blood in arteries). In aero-elasticity a compressible fluid interacts with a stiff structure (e.g. aircraft wing) or an incompressible flow is coupled with a very light structure (e.g. Parachute or sail), whereas in some other engineering applications an incompressible flow interacts with a flexible structure with large displacement (e.g. oil risers in offshore industries). Therefore, various FSI models are employed to simulate a variety of different applications. An initial vital step to conduct an accurate FSI simulation is to perform a study of the physics of the problem which would be the main criterion on which the full FSI simulation procedure will then be based. In this thesis, interaction of an incompressible fluid flow at low Reynolds number with a flexible circular cylinder in two dimensions has been studied in detail using some of the latest published methods in the literature. The elements of procedures have been chosen in a way to allow further development to simulate the interaction of an incompressible fluid flow with a flexible oil riser with large displacement in three dimensions in future. To achieve this goal, a partitioned approach has been adopted to enable the use of existing structural codes together with an Immersed Boundary (IB) method which would allow the modelling of large displacements. A direct forcing approach, interpolation / reconstruction, type of IB is used to enforce the moving boundary condition and to create sharp interfaces with the possibility of modelling in three dimensions. This provides an advantage over the IB continuous forcing approach which creates a diffused boundary. And also is considered as a preferred method over the cut cell approach which is very complex in three dimensions with moving boundaries. Different reconstruction methods from the literature have been compared with the newly proposed method. The fluid governing equation is solved only in the fluid domain using a Cartesian grid and an Eulerian approach while the structural analysis was performed using Lagrangian methods. This method avoids the creation of secondary fluid domains inside the solid boundary which occurs in some of the IB methods. In the IB methods forces from the Eulerian flow field are transferred onto the Lagrangian marker points on the solid boundary and the displacement and velocities of the moving boundary are interpolated in the flow domain to enforce no-slip boundary conditions. Various coupling methods from the literature were selected and improved to allow modelling the interface and to transfer the data between fluid and structure. In addition, as an alternative method to simulate FSI for a single object in the fluid flow as suggested in the literature, the moving frame of reference method has been applied for the first time in this thesis to simulate Fluid-Structure interaction using an IB reconstruction approach. The flow around a cylinder in two dimensions was selected as a benchmark to validate the simulation results as there are many experimental and analytical results presented in the literature for this specific case

Parallel Processing of Eulerian-Lagrangian, Cell-based Adaptive Method for moving Boundary Problems.

In this study, issues and techniques related to the parallel processing of the Eulerian-Lagrangian method for multi-scale moving boundary computation are investigated. The scope of the study consists of the Eulerian approach for field equations, explicit interface-tracking, Lagrangian interface modification and reconstruction algorithms, and a cell-based unstructured adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) in a distributed-memory computation framework. We decomposed the Eulerian domain spatially along with AMR to balance the computational load of solving field equations, which is a primary cost of the entire solver. The Lagrangian domain is partitioned based on marker vicinities with respect to the Eulerian partitions to minimize inter-processor communication. Overall, the performance of an Eulerian task peaks at 10,000-20,000 cells per processor, and it is the upper bound of the performance of the Eulerian- Lagrangian method. Moreover, the load imbalance of the Lagrangian task is not as influential as the communication overhead of the Eulerian-Lagrangian tasks on the overall performance. To assess the parallel processing capabilities, a high Weber number drop collision is simulated. The high convective to viscous length scale ratios result in disparate length scale distributions; together with the moving and topologically irregular interfaces, the computational tasks require temporally and spatially resolved treatment adaptively. The techniques presented enable us to perform original studies to meet such computational requirements. Coalescence, stretch, and break-up of satellite droplets due xvii to the interfacial instability are observed in current study, and the history of interface evolution is in good agreement with the experimental data. The competing mechanisms of the primary and secondary droplet break up, along with the gas-liquid interfacial dynamics are systematically investigated. This study shows that Rayleigh-Taylor instability on the edge of an extruding sheet can be profound at the initial stage of collision, and Rayleigh-Plateau instability dominates the longitudinal disturbance on the fringe of the liquid sheet at a long time, which eventually results in primary breakups.PHDAerospace EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99988/1/ckkuan_1.pd

Quasi-simultaneous coupling methods for partitioned problems in computational hemodynamics

The paper describes the numerical coupling challenges in multiphysics problems like the simulation of blood flow in compliant arteries. In addition to an iterative coupling between the fluid flow and elastic vessel walls, i.e. fluid-structure interaction, also the coupling between a detailed 3D local (arterial) flow model and a more global 0D model (representing a global circulation) is analyzed. Most of the coupling analysis is formulated in the more abstract setting of electrical-network models. Both, weak (segregated) and strong (monolithic) coupling approaches are studied, and their numerical stability limitations are discussed. Being a hybrid combination, the quasi-simultaneous coupling method, developed for partitioned problems in aerodynamics, is shown to be a robust and flexible approach for hemodynamic applications too

A Partitioned FSI Approach to Study the Interaction between Flexible Membranes and Fluids

The interaction between fluids and structures, which is an interdisciplinary problem, has gained importance in a wide range of scientific and engineering applications. Thanks to new advances in computer technology, the numerical analysis of multiphysics phenomena has aroused growing interest. Fluid-structure interactions have been numerically and experimentally studied by many researchers and published by several books, papers, and review papers. Hou et al. (2012) [3] have also published a review paper entitled “Numerical methods for fluid-structure interaction”, which provides useful knowledge about different approaches for FSI analysis. The key challenge encountered in any numerical FSI analysis is the coupling between the two independent domains with clear distinctions. For example, a structure domain requires discretizing by a Lagrangian mesh where the mesh is fixed to the mass and follows the mass motion. In fact, the Lagrangian mesh is able to deform and follows an individual structural mass as it moves through space and time. Nonetheless, the fluid mesh remains intact within the space, where the fluid flows as time passes. The numerical approaches with regard to FSI phenomena can be divided into two main categories, namely the monolithic approach and the partitioned approach. In the former, a single system equation for the whole problem is solved simultaneously by a unified algorithm; however, in the latter, the fluid and the structure are discretized with their proper mesh and solved separately by different numerical algorithms. When a fluid flow interacts with a structure, the pressure load arising from the fluid flow is exerted on the structure, followed by deformations, stresses, and strains of the structure. Depending on the resulting deformation and the rate of the variations, a one-way or two-way coupling analysis can be conducted. Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is characterized by the interaction of some movable or deformable structure with an internal or surrounding fluid flow. In a fluid-structure interaction (FSI), the laws that describe fluid dynamics and structural mechanics are coupled. There is also another classification for FSI problems on the basis of mesh methods: conforming methods and non-conforming methods. In the first method, the interface condition is regarded as a physical boundary (interface boundary) moving during the solution time, which imposes the mesh for the fluid domain to be updated in conformity with the new position for the interface. In contrast, the implementation of the second method eliminates a need for the fluid mesh update on the account of the fact that the interface requirement is enforced by constraints on the system equations instead of the physical boundary motion. In this work, we study numerically and experimentally the fluid-structure interaction comprising a flexible slender shaped structure, free surface flow and potentially interacting rigid structures, categorized in flood protection applications, whereas more emphasis is given to numerical analysis. Objectives of this study are defined in detail as follows: The initial aim is the numerical analysis of the behavior of a down-scale membrane loaded by hydrostatic pressures, where the numerical results have to be validated against available experimental data. A further case which has to be investigated is how the full scale flexible flood barrier behaves when approached and impacted by an accelerated massive flotsam. The numerical model has to be built so as to replicate the same physical phenomenon investigated experimentally. It enables a comparison between the numerical and experimental analyses to be drawn. A more complicated case where the flexible down-scale membrane interacts with a propagated water wave is a further target area to study. Moreover, an experimental investigation is required to validate the numerical results by way of comparison. The ultimate goal is to perform a similitude analysis upon which a correlation between the full-scale prototype and the down-scale model can be formed. The implementation of the similarity laws enables the behavior of the full scale prototype to be quantitatively assessed on the basis of the available data for the down-scale model. In addition, in order to validate the accuracy of the similitude analysis, numerical analyses have to be carried out.:Contents Zusammenfassung I ABSTRACT IV Nomenclature X 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Work overview 2 1.2 Literature review 3 1.2.1 The non-conforming methods 6 1.2.2 The conforming (partitioned) approaches 11 1.2.2.1 Interface data transfer 16 1.2.2.2 Accuracy, stability and efficiency 16 1.2.2.3 Modification of interface conditions: Robin transmission conditions 18 1.3 Concluding remarks 19 2 Methodology-numerical methods for fluid-structure interaction analysis (FSI) 20 2.1 Single FV framework 21 2.1.1 The prism layer mesher 24 2.1.2 Turbulence modeling 24 2.2 Preparation of the standalone Abaqus model 27 2.2.1 Damping by bulk viscosity 28 2.2.2 Coulomb friction damping 29 2.2.3 Rayleigh damping 29 2.2.4 Determination of the Rayleigh damping parameters based on the Chowdhury procedure 29 2.2.5 The frequency response function (FRF) measurement 30 2.2.6 The half-power bandwidth method 31 2.3 Explicit partitioned coupling 33 2.4 Implicit partitioned coupling 39 2.5 Overset mesh 40 2.6 Concluding remarks 42 3 Verification and validation of the structural model 44 3.1 Numerical model setup of the down-scale membrane 44 3.2 Comparing similarity between numerical and experimental results 46 3.2.1 Hypothesis test terminology 46 3.2.2 Curve fitting 47 3.2.3 Similarity measures between two curves 48 3.3 Results (down-scale membrane) 52 3.3.1 Similarity tests for the contact length 54 3.3.2 Similarity tests for the slope 58 3.3.3 Similarity tests for the displacement in Y direction 60 3.4 Concluding remarks 63 4 Numerical model setup of the original membrane for impact analysis 66 4.1 Structure domain 67 4.2 Fluid domain 72 4.2.1 Standard mesh and results 74 4.2.2 Overset mesh 80 4.3 Co-simulation model setup and results 88 4.4 Concluding remarks 96 5 Numerical wave generation 100 5.1 Theoretical estimation of the waves 107 5.2 Numerical wave tank setup 110 5.3 Results 114 5.4 Concluding remarks 119 6 Validity of the model with dynamic pressure 121 6.1 Wave tank 123 6.2 Structure domain 127 6.3 Fluid domain 130 6.4 Co-simulation model setup 136 6.5 Experimental approach 137 6.6 Results 141 6.6.1 Similarity tests for the displacement of the membrane in X direction 156 6.6.2 Similarity tests for the displacement of the membrane in Y direction 160 6.6.3 Similarity tests for the displacement of the membrane in Z direction 164 6.7 Concluding remarks 168 7 Similarity 171 7.1 Motivation 171 7.2 Governing equations 174 7.3 Buckingham Pi theorem 175 7.4 Dimensionless numbers 175 Similitude requirement 177 7.5 Simulation setup 178 7.6 Results 179 7.7 Concluding remarks 191 8 Summary, conclusions and outlook 192 List of figures 199 List of tables 209 References 21