Computational simulation of fluid-structure interaction of soft kites

Abstract

In order to aid the development and automation of airborne wind energy (AWE) systems, the foundation for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations considering soft kites is developed. FSI simulations are used as a way to predict the deformation of highly flexible structures exposed to a fluid flow and the resulting interaction of solid and fluid. This is especially important for kites since the aeroelastic effects can not be neglected if a realistic approach is regarded. Therefore, the open-source structural multibody dynamics solver MBDyn is coupled to an extension of the open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver OpenFOAM, namely FOAM-FSI, via the coupling environment preCICE. Relevant modeling features of MBDyn for soft kites such as membrane elements and appropriate boundary conditions are evaluated by means of simple test cases. Furthermore, an adapter for the communication between preCICE and MBDyn is developed and assessed as well. Since an adapter for FOAM-FSI and preCICE already exists, no efforts considering this aspect had to be made. Using this approach, a simple FSI simulation on a ram-air kite section is performed. Due to convincing results regarding the test cases, MBDyn is considered to be a suitable solver for the simulation of soft kites. Moreover, the correct implementation of the adapter is verified by the coupled FSI simulation of a modified benchmark with respect to the aforementioned participating solvers. An approach to FSI simulations on soft kites is successfully developed and verified. However, no reliable final evaluation for the kite section can be made due to the lack of reference solutions.