High-order DLM-ALE discretizations with robust operator preconditioning for fluid-rigid-body interaction

Abstract: Motivated by the design of deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) microfluidic devices, we develop a high-order numerical framework for fluid-rigid-body interaction on fitted moving meshes. Rigid-body motion is enforced by a distributed Lagrange multiplier (DLM) formulation, while the moving fluid domain is treated by an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) mapping. In space, we use isoparametric Taylor-Hood elements to achieve high-order accuracy and to represent curved boundaries and the fluid-particle interface. In time, we employ a high-order partitioned Runge-Kutta strategy in which the mesh motion is advanced explicitly and the coupled physical fields are advanced implicitly, yielding high-order accuracy for the particle trajectory. The fully coupled system is linearized into a generalized Stokes problem subject to distributed constraints of incompressibility and rigid-body motion. We establish well-posedness of this generalized Stokes formulation at both the continuous and discrete levels, providing the stability foundation for operator preconditioning that is robust with respect to key physical and discretization parameters. Numerical experiments on representative benchmarks, including a DLD case, demonstrate high-order convergence for the fluid solution and rigid-body dynamics, as well as robust iterative convergence of the proposed preconditioners.