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Fluid Dynamics Seminar

Mon., Sept. 23, 2013, 2:30 PM
Cullimore, Room 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Using Fully-Coupled Dynamic Fluid-Structure Interaction Models to Study Bio-Mechanical Systems

Lucy T. Zhang

Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Abstract

Fluid-structure interactions exist in many aspects of our daily lives. Some biomedical engineering examples are blood flowing through a blood vessel and blood pumping in the heart. Fluid interacting with moving or deformable structures poses more numerical challenges for its complexity in dealing with transient and simultaneous interactions between the fluid and solid domains. To obtain stable, effective, and accurate solutions is not trivial. Traditional methods that are available in commercial software often generate numerical instabilities. In this study, we present the Immersed Finite Element Method (IFEM) that we have been developing and enhancing over the past decade to study complex fluid-structure interaction in biomedical engineering applications. This non-boundary-fitted mesh technique does not require mesh-updating or remeshing, and can easily couple any existing fluid and solid solvers. The fluid and solid domains are fully coupled and their dynamics are been solved rather than imposed, thus yield accurate and stable solutions, even for high Reynolds number flows, large deformations, and high density disparities. The variables in the two domains are interpolated via an interpolation function that enables the use of non-uniform grids in the fluid domain, which allows the use of arbitrary geometry shapes and boundary conditions. This approach can be extended to model even more complex three-phase (gas-liquid-solid) interactions.