Mathematical and computation framework for moving and colliding rigid bodies in a Newtonian fluid

We studied numerically the dynamics of colliding rigid bodies in a Newtonian fluid. The finite element method is used to solve the fluid-body interaction and the fluid motion is described in the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian framework. To model the interactions between bodies, we consider a repulsive collision-avoidance model, defined by R. Glowinski in [1]. The main emphasis in this work is the generalization of this collision model to multiple rigid bodies of arbitrary shape. Our model first uses a narrow-band fast marching method to detect the set of colliding bodies. Then, collision forces and torques are computed for these bodies via a general expression, which does not depend on their shape. Numerical experiments examining the performance of the narrow-band fast marching method and the parallel execution of the collision algorithm are discussed. We validate our model with literature results and show various applications of colliding bodies in two and three dimensions. In these applications, the bodies either move due to gravity, a flow, or can actuate themselves. Finally, we present a tool to create arbitrary shaped bodies in complex already discretized fluid domains, enabling conforming body-fluid interface and allowing to perform simulations of fluid-body interactions with collision treatment in these realistic environments. All simulations are conducted with the Feel++ open source library