Comparison of strong and partitioned fluid structure code coupling methods

As far as flow-induced vibrations are concerned, fluid structure interactions and fluid elastic effects are involved. They may be characterized by parameters like added mass, added damping and added stiffness describing fluid and flow effects on structure motion. From a numerical point of view, identifying these parameters requires numerical simulation of coupled fluid and structure problems. To perform such a multi-physics computation, several numerical methods can be considered involving either a partitioned or a monolithic fluid structure code coupling procedure. Monolithic process is a fully implicit method ensuring the energy conservation of the coupled system. However its implementation may be difficult when specific methods are required for both fluid and structure solvers. The partitioned procedure does not feature the same disadvantage because fluid and structure computations are staggered in time. However a specific attention must be paid to the energy conservation of the full coupled system and one must choose code coupling schemes in order to avoid or to reduce as much as possible numerical dissipation polluting the results. In the present paper, several techniques for fluid structure code coupling are compared. Several configurations are considered and numerical results are discussed in terms of added mass and damping for structures vibrating in fluid at rest. These results contribute to the validation of a full fluid structure code coupling procedure with many possible applications in the fields of fluid structure interactions and flow-induced vibrations.