Semi-implicit Eulerian method for the fluid structure interaction of elastic membranes

In this paper we propose a novel and general approach to design semi-implicit methods for the simulation of fluid-structure interaction problems in a fully Eulerian framework. In order to properly present the new method, we focus on the two-dimensional version of the general model developed to describe full membrane elasticity. The approach consists in treating the elastic source term by writing an evolution equation on the structure stress tensor, even if it is nonlinear. Then, it is possible to show that its semi-implicit discretization allows us to add to the linear system of the Navier-Stokes equations some consistent dissipation terms that depend on the local deformation and stiffness of the membrane. Due to the linearly implicit discretization, the approach does not need iterative solvers and can be easily applied to any Eulerian framework for fluid-structure interaction. Its stability properties are studied by performing a Von Neumann analysis on a simplified one-dimensional model and proving that, thanks to the additional dissipation, the discretized coupled system is unconditionally stable. Several numerical experiments are shown for two-dimensional problems by comparing the new method to the original explicit scheme and studying the effect of structure stiffness and mesh refinement on the membrane dynamics. The newly designed scheme is able to relax the time step restrictions that affect the explicit method and reduce crucially the computational costs, especially when very stiff membranes are under consideration.