NKS for Fully Coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction with Application

Newton-Krylov-Schwarz algorithms have been used in many areas and are often quite scalable and robust. In this paper we explore the application of Schwarz type domain decomposition preconditioners to some fully coupled systems for fluidstructure interaction. In particular, we are interested in developing a scalable parallel framework for the simulation of blood flow in human arteries [11]. In [2, 3], coupled fluid-structure problems are solved in 3D for patient-specific artery models, with emphasis on accurately representing vessel geometry, on constitutive model for the artery walls, and other physical concerns. In this paper we focus on a class of parallel domain decomposition algorithms for solving the coupled systems and report on the robustness and parallel scalability of the algorithms. Very often in the simulation of fluid-structure interaction, fluid and structure are iteratively coupled, as in [4, 5, 7]. That is, fluid and structure subproblems are solved alternately (or in parallel), passing boundary conditions between them, until the solutions are compatible at the fluid-structure interface, and then the simulation proceeds to the next time step. However, this approach often requires small timesteps, can become unstable, and can reduce the order of accuracy of the solution [8]. In contrast, we use fully monolithic coupling, where the fluid and the structure are solved together as one system.