Author(s)

N. Bouaanani & B. Miquel

Abstract

This paper proposes error estimators to validate Transmitting Boundary Conditions (TBCs) in fluid-structure interaction problems. The error estimators are based on a new formulation of the dynamic response of fluid-structure systems including TBCs. The mathematical background is briefly discussed and the obtained equations are solved numerically to assess the accuracy of a given TBC and determine the associated error independently of FEM or BEM modeling of the fluid domain. The error estimators take account of : (i) structure’s flexibility, (ii) fluid compressibility, (iii) energy dissipation at fluid boundaries, (iv) fluid domain truncation length, and (v) excitation frequency. An illustrative example consisting of a dam-reservoir system is presented where an error estimator is used to evaluate the effects of various TBCs on the hydrodynamic pressure acting on the dam upstream face. The proposed formulation can be programmed easily and used efficiently for rigorous assessment of classical or newly-developed TBCs for vibrating fluid-structure systems. Keywords: fluid-structure interaction, transmitting boundary conditions, error analysis, analytical formulations, dam-reservoir systems, earthquake analysis, hydrodynamic loading. 1 Introduction Accurate evaluation of hydrodynamic loading on structures such as dams is crucial for their safety assessment. Significant research has been devoted to study this type of loading since the pioneering work of Westergaard [1] who introduced the

Keywords

fluid-structure interaction, transmitting boundary conditions, error analysis, analytical formulations, dam-reservoir systems, earthquake analysis, hydrodynamic loading