FULLY COUPLED FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION FOR OFFSHORE APPLICATIONS

CAD integrated tools are accelerating product development by incorporating various aspects of physics through coupling with computational aided engineering (CAE) packages. One of the most challenging areas is fluid-structure interaction (FSI) of low mass bodies such as flexible marine risers/cables with vortex-induced vibrations. The focus of this work is on the application of a new Multi-Iterative Coupling (MIC) procedure to couple AcuSolve (fluid solver) with Abaqus (structural solver). The proposed new scheme has superior stability and convergence properties as compared to conventional explicit staggered schemes, especially for low mass-density ratios of structure to fluid. Demonstrations and validation of the scheme are presented and discussed along with additional challenges associated with FSI in production environments. The addition of an FEA solver enables the modeling of the nonlinear aspects of flexible riser VIV, namely, contacts with gaps, multi-body dynamics, seabed interaction, geometric and/or material nonlinearities.