Extended Finite Element Method for Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems

Abstract

This work proposes a study on the XFEM method used to treat the conjoined interface between fluid and structure domains in two dimensional coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The idea is based on [1], in which the FSI problem is solved adopting two non-matching overlapping meshes for the structural and fluid fields in an alternative to usual Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) approaches. Using this formulation, the fluid can be solved by classical Eulerian approach where the mesh is fixed in space during all the computation. In order to illustrate the method applicability, steady and unsteady simulations of incompressible viscous flow past a cylinder were performed.