The immersed boundary method for simulating structure-fluid interaction

Abstract

The immersed boundary (IB) method is the method for studying flexible structure-fluid interaction. In this article, we present the mathematical structure of the method which aims to simulate mostly the problems in biofluid dynamics. The philosophy of the IB method is to make the communication between the Eulerian variables that are used in fluid dynamics and the Lagrangian variables that are used to describe the elasticity of the material through the Dirac delta function. Since the method was introduced in 1972, it has been used widely in various structure-fluid interactions. Some applications are mentioned in this article.