A fully explicit fluid-structure interaction approach based on the PFEM

The efficient numerical simulation of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems is of growing interest in many engineering fields. In the present work, a staggered approach for the solution of the FSI problem is proposed. The fluid domain is discretized with an explicit Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) while the solid domain with a standard finite element method. The weakly compressible formulation of fluid flow, originally proposed in for the PFEM, is here used for the fluid domain. The PFEM has shown its capability in simulation of free surface flows in many applications. Thanks to the Lagrangian formulation, the free surface is directly defined by the current position of the particles, while the governing equations are imposed like in standard FEM. When the mesh becomes too distorted, a fast remeshing algorithm is used to redefine the connectivities. SIMULIA AbaqusExplicit has been used for the solution of the structural domain. The GC Domain Decomposition method is here used for the coupling: the problem is solved independently on each subdomain and then linked at the interface using a Lagrange multiplier technique. The proposed method allows for different time-steps in the two subdomains and for non-conforming meshes at the interfaces between the solid and fluid domains. Moreover, this approach guarantees an explicit coupling at the interfaces. 2D test-cases will be presented to validate the proposed coupling technique. The explicit scheme for both the fluid and solid subdomains, together with the explicit treatment of the coupling, makes this method appealing for applications in a variety of engineering problems with fast dynamics and/or a high degree of non-linearity.