Unified Lagrangian formulation for elastic solids and incompressible fluids: Application to fluid-structure interaction problems via the PFEM

We present a general Lagrangian formulation for treating elastic solids and quasi/fully incompressible fluids in a unified form. The formulation allows to treat solid and fluid subdomains in a unified manner in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) situations. In our work the FSI problem is solved via the particle finite element method (PFEM). The PFEM is an effective technique for modeling complex interactions between floating and submerged bodies and free surface flows, accounting for splashing of waves, large motions of the bodies and frictional contact conditions. Applications of the unified Lagrangian formulation to a number of FSI problems are given. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.