A new mathematical formulation and fast algorithm for fully resolved simulation of self-propulsion

Anup A. Shirgaonkar, Malcolm A. MacIver, Neelesh A. Patankar*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

160 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a computational algorithm for fully resolved numerical simulation (FRS) of rigid and deforming bodies moving in fluids. Given the deformation of the body in its own reference frame, the method solves for the swimming velocity of the body together with the surrounding flow field, and the hydrodynamic forces on the body. We provide the mathematical foundation of the algorithm based on distributed Lagrange multipliers, and show that it naturally connects with vortex methods through a vorticity source at the interface. We demonstrate applications to rigid and flexible bodies, membranes, and bodies with a propelling membrane attached to them. In contrast to some existing methods, the swimming velocity of the body is not prescribed but is computed along with the forces, without requiring a body-fitted grid. The algorithm is designed to be fast, efficient, and easy to implement in existing fluid dynamics codes for practical solid-fluid problems in engineering and biology.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2366-2390
Number of pages25
JournalJournal of Computational Physics
Volume228
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 20 2009

Funding

This work was supported by NSF grant IOB-0517683 to M.A.M. Partial support was provided by NSF CAREER grant CTS-0134546 to N.A.P and CBET-0828749 to N.A.P and M.A.M. Computational resources were provided by the San Diego Supercomputer Center through NSF’s TeraGrid project grant CTS-070056T to A.A.S., N.A.P. and M.A.M., and in part by a developmental grant from the Argonne National Laboratory to N.A.P.

Keywords

  • Biolocomotion
  • DNS
  • Distributed Lagrange multiplier method
  • Fully resolved simulation (FRS)
  • Immersed boundary method
  • Self-propulsion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Numerical Analysis
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computational Mathematics
  • Applied Mathematics

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