An Immersed-Boundary method for deformable bodies at high Reynolds numbers

With the aim of accurately simulate the flow-field through gas turbine blades a numerical approach is presented, that couples a massively parallel, finite volume Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier--Stokes Equations solver with an efficient structural solver describing the dynamics of deformable bodies, using an iterative coupled approach. The numerical strategy is based on a suitable version of the immersed boundary (IB) technique, which is able to handle rigid and deformable complex geometries in turbulent flows. The structures are discretized by a surface mesh of three-node triangular elements and modeled by means of a finite element method. The solution of the fluid-structure-interaction (FSI) problem produces detailed information of the flow patterns through realistic geometries subject to small deformations at high Reynolds and Mach numbers.