A computational domain decomposition approach for solving coupled flow-structure-thermal interaction problems

Solving complex coupled processes involving fluid-structure-ther-mal interactions is a challenging problem in computational sciences and engineering. Currently there exist numerous public-domain and commercial codes available in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Structural Dynamics (CSD) and Computational Thermodynamics (CTD). Different groups specializing in modelling individual process such as CSD, CFD, CTD often come together to solve a complex coupled application. Direct numerical simulation of the non-linear equations for even the most simplified fluid-structure-thermal interaction (FSTI) model depends on the convergence of iterative solvers which in turn rely heavily on the properties of the coupled system. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a flexible multilevel algorithm with finite elements that can be used to study a coupled FSTI. The method relies on decomposing the complex global domain, into several local sub-domains, solving smaller problems over these sub-domains and then gluing back the local solution in an efficient and accurate fashion to yield the global solution. Our numerical results suggest that the proposed solution methodology is robust and reliable.