Finite element analysis of auxetic obstacle deformation and fluid flow in a channel

The influence of the Poisson's ratio of a viscoelastic obstacle on the flow in a two-dimensional channel was studied by a finite element computer simulation. The arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation for deformed mesh was applied to handle the moving boundaries of the computational domain. An anomalous deformation of the obstacle was observed when the Poisson's ratio was negative and close to its minimum value. It was also found that the maximum velocity of the fluid in the system decreased with the decreasing Poisson's ratio. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.