Existence of a Steady Flow of Stokes Fluid Past a Linear Elastic Structure Using Fictitious Domain

We use fictitious domain method with penalization for the Stokes equation in order to obtain approximate solutions in a fixed larger domain including the domain occupied by the structure. The coefficients of the fluid problem, excepting the penalizing term, are independent of the deformation of the structure. It is easy to check the inf-sup condition and the coercivity of the Stokes problem in the fixed domain. Subtracting the structure equations from the fictitious fluid equations in the structure domain, we obtain a weak formulation in a fixed domain, where the continuity of the stress at the interface does not appear explicitly. Existence of a solution is proved when the structure displacement is generated by a finite number of modes.