A lattice Boltzmann-finite element model for two-dimensional fluid–structure interaction problems involving shallow waters

• Shallow water equations are solved through the lattice Boltzmann method.
• Solid bodies are idealized by beam finite elements.
• The fluid and solid solvers are coupled within a proper strategy.
• The model is validated against the one-dimensional dam break benchmark.
• Water waves consequently to a partial dam break impacts deformable beams.

In this paper, a numerical method for the modeling of shallow waters interacting with slender elastic structures is presented. The fluid domain is modeled through the lattice Boltzmann method, while the solid domain is idealized by corotational beam finite elements undergoing large displacements. Structure dynamics is predicted by using the time discontinuous Galerkin method and the fluid–structure interface conditions are handled by the Immersed Boundary method. An explicit coupling strategy to combine the adopted numerical methods is proposed and its effectiveness is tested by computing the error in terms of the energy that is artificially introduced at the fluid–solid interface.