Porous Euler-Lagrange Coupling: Application to Parachute Dynamics

A newly developed approach for tridimensional fluid-structure interaction with a deformable thin porous media is presented under the framework of the LS-DYNA® software. The method presented couples a Arbitrary Lagrange Euler formulation for the fluid dynamics and a updated Lagrangian finite element formulation for the thin porous medium dynamics. The interaction between the fluid and porous medium are handled by a Euler-Lagrange coupling, for which the fluid and structure meshes are superimposed without matching. The coupling force is computed with an Ergun porous flow model. As test case, the method is applied to an anchored air parachute placed in an air stream