Automating U-spline fluid-structure model development for mobility applications

Dr. Thomas J.R. Hughes, senior advisor at Coreform, first introduced isogeometric analysis (IGA) in 2005. In the years since, it has been shown that smooth splines, the basic building blocks of IGA, allow for the use of relatively coarse meshes for accurate analysis in both finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Research results also show that IGA delivers improved accuracy per degree of freedom, numerical robustness, and computational efficiency, including in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations. While the technical benefits of IGA make it an attractive technology for simulating FSI, the current state-of-the-art IGA FSI workflow is flawed: methods for generating computational meshes, currently based on multi-patch NURBS, are incapable of handling complex CAD geometry. The highly qualified Coreform team is developing U-splines as an optimal geometric description for IGA applications in FEA, CFD, and FSI. U-splines is a patent-pending technology that can increase simulation accuracy, decrease compute times, and remove the severe limitations inherent in prevailing approaches to FSI model development. In this STTR, Coreform will collaborate with the University of Colorado Boulder to validate that U-spline models provide best-in-class simulation results for FSI and prepare to add FSI capabilities to Coreform's commercial IGA software.