FLUID STRUCTURE INTERATION OF A

FLAPPING CONSOLE FIXED TO A BLOCK

1.INTRODUCTION
Fluid-structure interaction problems describe the coupled dynamics of fluid mechanics and
structure mechanics. They are classical multi-physics problems. Examples for fluid-structure
interaction exist in many engineering applications:
a) Aerodynamics where the study of the classical problems like flutter analysis, aileron
effectiveness and estimating the design parameters of airfoil sections has been
increasing important because of absence of experimental data. In particular for new
and large constructions, like the Airbus 380, experimental data from wind tunnel tests
are not available. For an accurate simulation however, the deformation of the plane under the
aerodynamic forces has to be taken into account, since this deformation alters the shape of
the plane and thus changes the aerodynamic behavior.


b) Bio-engineering
For a better understanding of the flow of blood in vessels or in the heart, simulations are the
only way to obtain data.

The aim of current study is to take a first step in understanding the physics and numerical behavior
of fluid-structure problems. And the study focuses on a simple problem of a flapping console fixed
at one end to a block subjected to a fluid flow. The study involves studying the nature of coupling
and dependency of the solution on the flow parameters and the coupling parameters. The case under
study is shown below in fig.1.



Fig.1 Schematic of a Flapping console fixed at one end to a block in a fluid flow

The problem is solved using a weak coupling scheme icoFsiFoam in commercial software called
OpenFoam. The reason of the problem being a weak coupling can be explained in terms of how the
fluid and solid solvers are coupled. In case of icoFsiFoam solver the results from fluid model are
transferred to solid model only once for all as an external load. No responses are feedback to the
fluid model. In other words, the interaction between them is not a complete process, only one
direction interaction (fluid to solid) involved. So numerically this is a weak coupling problem.

Before dwelling into modeling the problem the first question to be focused on is why does the beam
oscillate. The answer to this question helps understanding how the fluid and structure interact. As
the beam is a deformable body under the fluid pressure it deforms alters the flow pattern of the fluid
and thereby changing the pressure. But the finite bending stiffness and finite length causes
oscillation of beam with finite frequency.


2. SOLVER: icoFsiFoam

The icoFsiFoam solver is a solver for weakly coupled FSI problems. The structural part is based
on stressedFoam and as such limited to linear stressstrain relationships and small deformations.
The fluid part of the solver is based on the icoFoam solver and is limited to Newtonian flu-
ids in incompressible, laminar flow. icoFsiFoam a SIMPLE-based algorithm with corrector loops
specified by PISO parameters in the system/fvSolution dictionary of the case of interest.
The governing equations for solid and fluid are described as below :

a)Solid
Momentum Equation: Continuity Equation Strain Relation

The continuity and strain relationships are placed in the Momentum equation to obtain the
governing equation which is represented as shown below in the code.


b) Fluid
The governing equations as given below:
Momentum

Continuity


The fluid solver is based on SIMPLE Algorithm. The SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-
Linked Equations) allows coupling the Navier-Stokes equations with an iterative procedure, which
can be summed up as follows:
1. Set the boundary conditions.
2. Solve the discretized momentum equation to compute the intermediate velocity field.
3. Compute the mass fluxes at the cells faces.
4. Solve the pressure equation and apply under-relaxation.
5. Correct the mass fluxes at the cell faces.
6. Correct the velocities on the basis of the new pressure field.
7. Update the boundary conditions.
8. Repeat till convergence.
The steps 4 and 5 can be repeated for a prescribed number of time to correct for non-orthogonality.
The coupling between the solid and fluid solvers is given by the set.Motion file whose outline is
shown in following code


4.Grid Convergence

a)Maximum pressure for different mesh cases


a) For fine mesh with around 5000elements b)For a medium mesh with around 2000element







c) For a coarse mesh with around 800elements
It can be noticed that the maximum pressure induced in the flow field converges as the mesh
becomes finer to a value of 14.267MPa.

b)Maximum Flow velocity


a) Velocity Profile for a fine mesh b) Velocity Profile for medium mesh






c) Velocity Profile for a Coarse Mesh


Similarily to the pressure it can be noticed that the maximum flow velocity converges to a value of
9m/s as grid becomes finer.

c) Displacement over time of the solid

The maximum displacement value converges to 0.08m as the grid become finer.















a) Displacement vs time for a coarse mesh























b) Displacement vs time for Medium mesh
5. BASE COMPUTATION
The following table gives the physical properties and the boundary conditions considered for
current study. All the computations are carried out for a fine mesh.


a) Fluid Properties:

viscosity = 0.001m^2/s density = 1kg/m^3

b) Solid Properties :

Poisson ratio = 0.3 density = 1000kg/m^3 E=2x10^6

c) Boundary Conditions

fluid inflow outflow wall console

velocity 4 m/s 0m/s 0 m/s 0 m/s

pressure zero Gradient total Pressure = 0 Pa zero Gradient zero Gradient

solid - - block console
0m traction Displacement

d) Computing Parameters:

Start time: 0 End time: 20sec Step Time :0.03 Write Interval =20

The

1. Odd Case:

a) Pressure Contours







a) Pressure contour at the min displacement








b) Pressure contour at the max displacement



b) Displacement of solid:







a)Min Displacement of the console











b)Max Displacement of the console

2. Even Case

a)Pressure Contour


a) Pressure contour for min displacement


b) Pressure contour for max displacement

b) Displacement of solid:


a)Fig showing the maximum displacement of the console

b)Fig showing the minimum displacement of the console



c) Displacement vs time graph for t=0-5secs


If we compare the displacements of the even case and the odd case we notice that the displacement
of the console is higher when compared to the odd case. This can be attributed to the greater
slenderness of the console in even case. The length of the beam plays a key role in the oscillation
frequency which is well known from the structural mechanics. So in even case the beam being
larger vibrates with higher amplitude.

6. PARAMETER STUDY

a) Effect of Density ratio

To study the effects of the changes in density on the amplitude of vibration and the flow
pattern studies were conducted with varying density of solid to 500Kg/m^3 and
200kg/m^3.It was found that as the density of the solid decreases the amplitude of vibration
is very high at the beginning and for very low densities the initial deflection is higher than
allowable deflection causing numerical error and computation to crash. This is schematically
explained from the displacement vs time graphs and contour for above mentioned density
values.

Displacement vs time graph of simulateion with solid density 500kg/m^3

From above graph it can be noted that initial amplitude of vibration is higher unlike the case
previously demonstrated and when the density for decreases the initial amplitude will be more than
the maximum allowable amplitude of vibration just like the case of flutter of a airfoil. This is
demonstrated below with case where solid density is 200Kg/m^3.


Displacement contour solid density 200kg/m^3

It can be noted from the value marked in the above fig that the amplitude of deflection is very high
and causes the computation to crash.


b)Effect of Flow Velocity

The next important factor that could affect the amplitude of vibration is the flow speed which is the
subject of the current study. The study is carried out for 2 different flow velocities 6m/s and 8m/s.
The contour of displacement for 6m/s is shown in fig below. The amplitude increased by a factor of
2 as the velocity increased from 4 m/s to 6m/s.From this it can be seen that the amplitude of
vibration increases with the flow velocity but the increase is comparable and within the range of
allowable deflection for a given beam. As the flow velocity is still considerably very small the
failure does not occur at these velocities as in the case of variation of density.


Displacement contour for velocity of 6m/s


7. SUMMARY
The above study has successfully estimated the physical behavior of the fluid structure interaction
along with the good understand of numerical coupling involved in the computation. Initially the
tests were conducted for two different cases where the length of the beam is varied and it was noted
that the deflection of beam is higher in case of longer beam. Next a study was conducted to verify
the numerical behavior by checking the convergence of solution with varied mesh size. It was noted
that a fine mesh of around 5000element has proven to give a converged solution for different
parameters like the flow pressure, velocity and the amplitude of vibration of the beam. Finally a
study of effect of different parameters on the amplitude of vibration was carried out and it was
noticed that as density decreases the initial amplitude increases and this increase is significantly
high above the permissible deflection. A similar increase was noted in the study of effect of increase
in flow velocity but the change is within the permissible limits. Though the study was carried out
for both the cases only the results for even case are published in order to be precise and not to be
repetitive as similar results were observed.