3D WC-MPS coupled with geometrically nonlinear shell for hydro-elastic free-surface flows

Abstract: A 3D fluid-structure interaction solver based on an improved weakly-compressible moving particle simulation (WC-MPS) method and a geometrically nonlinear shell structural model is developed and applied to hydro-elastic free-surface flows. The fluid-structure coupling is performed by a polygon wall boundary model that can handle particles and finite elements of distinct sizes. In WC-MPS, a tuning-free diffusive term is introduced to the continuity equation to mitigate non-physical pressure oscillations. Discrete divergence operators are derived and applied to the polygon wall boundary, of which the numerical stability is enhanced by a repulsive Lennard-Jones force. Additionally, an efficient technique to deal with the interaction between fluid particles placed at opposite sides of zero-thickness walls is proposed. The geometrically nonlinear shell is modeled by an unstructured mesh of six-node triangular elements. Finite rotations are considered with Rodrigues parameters and a hyperelastic constitutive model is adopted. Benchmark examples involving free-surface flows and thin-walled structures demonstrate that the proposed model is robust, numerically stable and offers more efficient computation by allowing mesh size larger than that of fluid particles.