Progress in Engineering Computational Technology
Edited by: B.H.V. Topping and C.A. Mota Soares

Chapter 6

Computational Modelling of Thermal-Fluid-Structure Interaction Processes

M. Cross, A. Slone, A.J. Williams and T.N. Croft
Centre for Numerical Modelling and Process Analysis, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom

Keywords: multi-physics, fluid structure interaction, thermal-fluid-structure interaction, computational methods, software technologies.

In the simulation of physical processes through computational methods, an emerging area of significance is the class of problems where fluids and structures interact (FSI processes). Of course capturing FSI is made more complex by the fact that computational software for simulating fluids is conventionally based upon finite volume (FV) methods whilst that for structures ubiquitously uses finite element (FE) methods. This presentation will address the challenges and routes forward for addressing FSI problems, including:

• The mathematics and physics of fluid-structure coupling
• Computational strategies for capturing all the important phenomena for FSI problems
• The software integration issues
• Computational performance issues

The presentation will attempt to describe approaches to address the above issues and how they might be embedded within software technology which is both robust and flexible enough to enable a wide range of processes to be simulated.

return to the contents page