Parameterization-driven arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian method for large-deformation isogeometric fluid-structure interaction
For researchers in computational fluid-structure interaction, this work provides a novel approach to handle large deformations and rotations that are intractable with traditional ALE methods.
The paper reformulates the ALE mesh-motion problem in isogeometric FSI as a sequence of independent domain parameterization problems, enabling simulations of large rotations far beyond classical mesh-update schemes. The method is validated on 2D and 3D benchmarks, including a rotating-square example where sustained rotation is achieved in a regime fundamentally inaccessible to mesh-deformation formulations.
Body-fitted arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) methods provide a sharp representation of the fluid-structure interface but rely on mesh-update strategies that incrementally deform a reference configuration. To address this issue, we reformulate the ALE mesh-motion problem in the isogeometric setting as a sequence of independent domain parameterization problems. At each time step, a multi-patch spline parameterization of the fluid domain is constructed from the current interface geometry. Three technical components realize this framework: (i) a barrier-function-based spline parameterization that enforces a strictly positive Jacobian at every time step; (ii) a tangential-slip reparameterization that handles unbounded cumulative rotations of closed domains, where no fixed boundary-to-parameter correspondence is admissible; and (iii) a constant-preserving quasi-interpolation operator for solution transfer between consecutive parameterizations, ensuring that the discrete geometric conservation law holds algebraically. We validate the method on three two-dimensional FSI benchmarks, covering standard and large-rotation regimes, and on a three-dimensional rotor problem. On a rotating-square benchmark, the tangential-slip strategy enables simulations under sustained rotation far beyond the range accessible to classical mesh-update schemes--a regime that is fundamentally inaccessible to any mesh-deformation formulation, not merely numerically difficult. A three-dimensional rotor example further demonstrates that the framework extends naturally to volumetric spline parameterizations. Finally, we show that the per-step spline parameterizations can be used directly within a standard finite element solver.