A Nitsche-based formulation for fluid-structure interactions with contact

We derive a Nitsche-based formulation for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems with contact. The approach is based on the work of Chouly and Hild (SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 51 (2013) 1295-1307) for contact problems in solid mechanics. We present two numerical approaches, both of them formulating the FSI interface and the contact conditions simultaneously in equation form on a joint interface-contact surface Gamma(t). The first approach uses a relaxation of the contact conditions to allow for a small mesh-dependent gap between solid and wall. The second alternative introduces an artificial fluid below the contact surface. The resulting systems of equations can be included in a consistent fashion within a monolithic variational formulation, which prevents the so-called "chattering" phenomenon. To deal with the topology changes in the fluid domain at the time of impact, we use a fully Eulerian approach for the FSI problem. We compare the effect of slip and no-slip interface conditions and study the performance of the method by means of numerical examples.