An immersed boundary approach for shape and topology optimization of stationary fluid-structure interaction problems

This paper presents an approach to shape and topology optimization of fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems at steady state. The overall approach builds on an immersed boundary method that couples a Lagrangian formulation of the structure to an Eulerian fluid model, discretized on a deforming mesh. The geometry of the fluid-structure boundary is manipulated by varying the nodal parameters of a discretized level set field. This approach allows for topological changes of the fluid-structure interface, but free-floating volumes of solid material can emerge in the course of the optimization process. The free-floating volumes are tracked and modeled as fluid in the FSI analysis. To sense the isolated solid volumes, an indicator field described by linear, isotropic diffusion is computed prior to analyzing the FSI response of a design. The fluid is modeled with the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and the structure is assumed linear elastic. The FSI model is discretized by an extended finite element method, and the fluid-structure coupling conditions are enforced weakly. The resulting nonlinear system of equations is solved monolithically with Newton’s method. The design sensitivities are computed by the adjoint method and the optimization problem is solved by a gradient-based algorithm. The characteristics of this optimization framework are studied with two-dimensional problems at steady state. Numerical results indicate that the proposed treatment of free-floating volumes introduces a discontinuity in the design evolution, yet the method is still successful in converging to meaningful designs.