Force Transfer for High Order Finite Element Methods using Intersected Meshes

High order Finite Element Methods have been shown to be an efficient approach for computing the behavior of fluids and structures alike. However the coupling of such methods in a framework for a partitioned fluid-structure interaction is still in its early stages. A difficulty hereby is a conservative transfer of the loads from the fluid to the solid and an appropriate transfer of the structural displacements back to the boundary of the fluid. This contribution describes the coupling of a high order finite element structural code to the commercial finite volume fluid solver CFX and focuses on the transfer of the loads. For this purpose, the fluid mesh and the structural mesh are intersected. The force acting on the solid is then computed by a composed integration scheme performed on the intersected mesh. The approach can be interpreted as a projection method taking into account the discretization on both sides, i.e. fluid and solid. Numerical examples will demonstrate the basic properties of this new type of data transfer.     «

High order Finite Element Methods have been shown to be an efficient approach for computing the behavior of fluids and structures alike. However the coupling of such methods in a framework for a partitioned fluid-structure interaction is still in its early stages. A difficulty hereby is a conservative transfer of the loads from the fluid to the solid and an appropriate transfer of the structural displacements back to the boundary of the fluid. This contribution describes the coupling of a high o...     »