The simulation of certain flow problems requires a means for modeling a free
fluid surface; examples being viscoelastic die swell or fluid sloshing in
tanks. In a finite-element context, this type of problem can, among many other
options, be dealt with using an interface-tracking approach with the
Deforming-Spatial-Domain/Stabilized-Space-Time (DSD/SST) formulation. A
difficult issue that is connected with this type of approach is the
determination of a suitable coupling mechanism between the fluid velocity at
the boundary and the displacement of the boundary mesh nodes. In order to avoid
large mesh distortions, one goal is to keep the nodal movements as small as
possible; but of course still compliant with the no-penetration boundary
condition. Standard displacement techniques are full velocity, velocity in a
specific coordinate direction, and velocity in normal direction. In this work,
we investigate how the interface-tracking approach can be combined with
isogeometric analysis for the spatial discretization. If NURBS basis functions
of sufficient order are used for both the geometry and the solution, both a
continuous normal vector as well as the velocity are available on the entire
boundary. This circumstance allows the weak imposition of the no-penetration
boundary condition. We compare this option with an alternative that relies on
strong imposition at discrete points. Furthermore, we examine several coupling
methods between the fluid equations, boundary conditions, and equations for the
adjustment of interior control point positions.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figure