A new SPH-FEM coupling method for fluid-structure interaction using segment-based interface treatment

This paper presents a new coupling method for the analysis of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) and finite element method (FEM). Both numerical methods are based on Lagrangian framework in which deformable interfaces are handled easily. Especially, the interfaces between fluid and deformable structures can be described as segments instead of particles using the proposed method. Near the contact surfaces, the particle deficiency problem is solved by considering the truncated support domain in the proposed method. Furthermore, the proposed method does not require unnecessary fine FEM mesh for structural analysis, which solves the complexity of modeling and computational inefficiency. The performance of the proposed method is validated with various numerical examples, compared with benchmark and experiment results.