Fluid-structure coupling using lattice-Boltzmann and fixed-grid FEM

This paper presents a method for the fluid-structure interaction by a hybrid approach that uses lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for the fluid dynamics analysis and fixed-grid FEM (FGFEM) for the structural analysis. The method is implemented in a high performance platform using GPUs to provide a high level of interactivity with the simulation. The solution uses the same Cartesian grid for both solvers. The coupling between both methods is accomplished by mapping the macroscopic pressure, velocity or momentum values from the LBM simulation into the corresponding nodes of the FGFEM structural problem. Inspite of being based on a Cartesian grid, both solvers take into account the effect of curve boundaries. Also the effect of a moving boundary is considered in the fluid simulations. The examples presented in this paper show that the accuracy of the solution is as the same level of the finite volume method of the finite element method. On the other hand, the performance of the parallel implementation of the proposed method is of the order that allows real-time visualisation of the computing values for two-dimensional problems. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.