The extended finite element method for rigid particles in Stokes flow

Gregory J Wagner (1) , Nicolas Moës (1) , Wing Kam Liu (1) , Ted Belytschko (1)

1 Northwestern University [Evanston]

A new method for the simulation of particulate flows, based on the extended finite element method (X‐FEM), is described. In this method, the particle surfaces need not conform to the finite element boundaries, so that moving particles can be simulated without remeshing. The near field form of the fluid flow about each particle is built into the finite element basis using a partition of unity enrichment, allowing the simple enforcement of boundary conditions and improved accuracy over other methods on a coarse mesh. We present a weak form of the equations of motion useful for the simulation of freely moving particles, and solve example problems for particles with prescribed and unknown velocities.

Mots clés: enrichment; Stokes flow; multiphase flow; fictitious domain method

Domaines: Mécanique [physics.med-ph]; Matériaux

Gregory J Wagner, Nicolas Moës, Wing Kam Liu, Ted Belytschko. The extended finite element method for rigid particles in Stokes flow. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 2001, 51 (3), pp.293-313. ⟨10.1002/nme.169⟩. ⟨hal-01007367⟩