A 3D phase-field based Eulerian variational framework for multiphase fluid–structure interaction with contact dynamics

Using a fixed Eulerian mesh, interface-capturing approaches such as volume-of-fluid, level-set and phase-field methods have been successfully utilized for a broad range of moving boundary problems involving multiphase fluids and single-phase fluid–structure interaction. Nevertheless, multiphase fluids interacting with multiple solids are rarely explored, especially for large-scale finite element simulations with contact dynamics. In this work, we introduce a novel parallelized three-dimensional fully Eulerian variational framework for simulating multiphase fluids interacting with multiple deformable solids subjected to solid-to-solid contact. In the framework, each solid or fluid phase is identified by a standalone phase indicator. Moreover the phase indicators are initialized by the grid cell method, which restricts the calculation to several grid cells instead of the entire domain and provides efficiency for modeling evolving interfaces on a fixed mesh. A diffuse interface description is employed for a smooth interpolation of physical properties across the phases, yielding unified mass and momentum conservation equations for the coupled dynamical interactions. For each solid object, temporal integration is carried out to track the strain evolution in an Eulerian frame of reference. The coupled differential equations are solved in a partitioned manner and integrated via nonlinear iterations. We first verify the framework against reference numerical data in a two-dimensional case of a rotational disk in a lid-driven cavity flow. The case is generalized to a rotational sphere in a lid-driven cavity flow to showcase large deformation and rotational motion of solids and examine the convergence in three dimensions. We then simulate the falling of an immersed solid sphere on an elastic block under gravitational force to demonstrate the translational motion and the solid-to-solid contact in a fluid environment. Finally, we demonstrate the capability of our proposed framework for a ship–ice interaction problem involving multiphase fluids with an air–water interface and contact between a floating ship and ice floes. • Unified continuum description of fluid–solid interaction via phase-field theory. • Multiphase fluid flow with multiple solids subjected to solid–solid contact. • 3D parallelized implementation for phase-field finite element simulation. • Novel diffuse interface initialization of interface with complex geometry. • Demonstration for ship–ice interaction with free-surface and contact dynamics.

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