A Variational Projection Scheme for Nonmatching Surface-to-Line Coupling between 3D Flexible Multibody System and Incompressible Turbulent Flow

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stable and accurate variational projection scheme for simulating fluid-structure interaction between turbulent incompressible flow and a nonlinear flexible multibody system with nonmatching interfaces, validated on real-world offshore platform data.

Contribution

It presents a novel variational projection method for nonmatching surface-to-line coupling in fluid-structure interaction involving turbulent flow and flexible multibodies, enhancing stability and accuracy.

Findings

Validated against experimental vortex-induced vibration data.

Successfully simulated flow-induced vibration of offshore platforms.

Demonstrated stability for strongly inertial coupled problems.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the partitioned iterative formulation to simulate the fluid-structure interaction of a nonlinear multibody system in an incompressible turbulent flow. The proposed formulation relies on a three-dimensional (3D) incompressible turbulent flow solver, a nonlinear monolithic elastic structural solver for constrained flexible multibody system and the nonlinear iterative force correction scheme for coupling of the turbulent fluid-flexible multibody system with nonmatching interface meshes. While the fluid equations are discretized using a stabilized Petrov-Galerkin formulation in space and the generalized-$\alpha$ updates in time, the multibody system utilizes a discontinuous space-time Galerkin finite element method. We address two key challenges in the present formulation. Firstly, the coupling of the incompressible turbulent flow with a system of nonlinear elastic bodies described in a co-rotated frame. Secondly, the projection of the tractions and displacements across the nonmatching 3D fluid surface elements and the one-dimensional line elements for the flexible multibody system in a conservative manner. Through the nonlinear iterative correction and the conservative projection, the developed fluid-flexible multibody interaction solver is stable for problems involving strong inertial effects between the fluid-flexible multibody system and the coupled interactions among each multibody component. The accuracy of the proposed coupled finite element framework is validated against the available experimental data for a long flexible cylinder undergoing vortex-induced vibration in a uniform current flow condition. Finally, a practical application of the proposed framework is demonstrated by simulating the flow-induced vibration of a realistic offshore floating platform connected to a long riser and an elastic mooring system.