A novel pressure–velocity formulation and solution method for fluid–structure interaction problems

In the standard approach for simulating fluid–structure interaction problems the solution of the set of equations for solids provides the three displacement components while the solution of equations for fluids provides the three velocity components and pressure. In the present paper a novel reformulation of the elastodynamic equations for Hookean solids is proposed so that they contain the same unknowns as the Navier–Stokes equations, namely velocities and pressure. A separate equation for pressure correction is derived from the constitutive equation of the solid material. The system of equations for both media is discretised using the same method (finite volume on collocated grids) and the same iterative technique (SIMPLE algorithm) is employed for the pressure–velocity coupling. With this approach, the continuity of the velocity field at the interface is automatically satisfied. A special pressure correction procedure that enforces the compatibility of stresses at the interface is also developed. The new method is employed for the prediction of pressure wave propagation in an elastic tube. Computations were carried out with different meshes and time steps and compared with available analytic solutions as well as with numerical results obtained using the Flügge equations that describe the deformation of thin shells. For all cases examined the method showed very good performance.