Extension of a sharp-interface immersed-boundary method for simulating parachute inflation

In this work, the sharp-interface immersed boundary (IB) method proposed by Mittal et al. (J Comput Phys 227(10):4825–4852, 2008) is extended to fluid-structure-interaction (FSI) simulation of parachute inflation by utilizing several open-source tools. The method employs a Cartesian-grid ghost-cell methodology to accurately represent the immersed boundary, and it is suitable for solving moving-boundary flows with arbitrarily complex geometries. The finite-element code CalculiX is employed to solve the structural dynamics of the parachute system. The IB flow solver is coupled with CalculiX in a minimally-invasive manner using the multi-physics coupling library preCICE. The implicit fluid-structure coupling together with the Aitken adaptive under-relaxation scheme is considered to improve the numerical accuracy and stability. The developed approach is validated by a benchmark FSI case. Numerical experiments on the inflation process of several typical parachutes are further conducted. The breathing process, flow structure, canopy displacement and drag coefficient are analyzed to demonstrate the applicability of the present approach for simulating parachute inflation.