An immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method for fluid-structure interaction problems involving viscoelastic fluids and complex geometries

An immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems involving viscoelastic fluids and complex geometries is presented in this paper. In this method, the fluid dynamics and the constitutive equations of viscoelastic fluids are both solved using the lattice Boltzmann method. In order to enhance numerical stability in solving the constitutive equations, an artificial damping is introduced which does not affect the numerical results if the damping effect is much smaller than the relaxation and the convective effects. The structural dynamics including 2D and 3D capsules, 2D and 3D rigid particles and flags, are solved by the finite difference method (2D capsules, 2D and 3D rigid particles and flags) and the finite element method (3D capsules). The interaction between the solid structure and the fluid is enforced by an immersed boundary method. The overall framework of this method is very simple, enabling modelling FSI problems involving viscoelastic fluids and the inertia of both fluids and structures. It is very efficient for FSI problems involving high Weissenberg numbers flows, large deformations and complicated geometries without any preconditioner. This work uses IB-LBM to solve for the first time, flows involving viscoelastic fluids coupled with non-massless deforming structures. The method is also capable of solving very high Weissenberg number problems, as demonstrated by simulations of flexible particle flows at Wi=100. The present method and models are validated by several cases including a 2D rigid particle migration in a Giesekus Couette flow, a spherical particle rotation in an Oldroyd-B shear flow, a spherical particle settling in a FENE-CR fluid, 2D and 3D capsules deformation in a Newtonian shear flow, and a 3D flag flapping in a Newtonian free stream. In addition, the present method is also applied to simulate the deformation of 2D and 3D capsules in an Oldroyd-B shear flow, a 3D flag flapping in an Oldroyd-B free stream, and elastic capsule movement in a contraction-expansion channel filled with an Oldroyd-B fluid. Deformation of the capsules decreases with the increase of the Weissenberg number and the capsules experience monotonically increasing deformation when the Weissenberg number is above a critical value which is respectively 10 for 2D and 2 for 3D simulations. Viscoelasticity of the Oldroyd-B fluid hinders the flapping motion of the 3D flag. For elastic capsules passing through a periodic contraction-expansion channel, the capsules mix up after a short-term evolution, and then migrate to the bottom of the channel and almost follow two steady trajectories after a long-term evolution. The validations and applications provide extensive data which may be used to expand the currently limited database available for FSI benchmark studies.