Transient fluid-structure interaction algorithms for large industrial applications

This paper presents techniques and algorithms developed for numerical modeling of fluid-structure interactions (FSIs) in nonlinear fast transient dynamics and arbitrarily complex 3D geometrical configurations. The models are well suited for impulsive loading and assume compressible, inviscid fluid behavior, Both finite element (FE) and finite volume (FV) discretizations of the fluid domain are considered and the peculiarities of each with respect to the interaction process are highlighted. The methods are of interest in many industrial applications, including gas explosions in hydroelectric power plants, transformers. pipelines, buildings, reactors, offshore and submarine structures, etc., of which some examples of relatively large size are given in the paper. The proposed algorithms deal with arbitrary geometric model complexity in a fully automatic manner, even in the presence of thin box-like shell structures. Therefore, they dramatically reduce the amount of user input data required with respect to other approaches, so that realistic industrial applications not only become feasible, but also can be tackled in a robust and efficient manner. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.