Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) is the study of thermo-mechanical interactions of a fluid and a solid structure. FSI modeling for implant device design is taking on even greater importance in the current medical device environment, as producing better designs, faster, is imperative in this industry to reduce operating costs and introduce necessary potentially life-saving devices to market.
STAR-CCM+, CD-adapco’s simulation tool, provides several unique approaches to FSI, leading to practical solutions for analyzing problems where biological fluids interact with flexible tissue, such as with blood and vessel interactions, and air and lung interactions.
This engineering simulation tool has a direct link to Abaqus FEA through co-simulation, delivering fully coupled, two-way, fluid-structure interaction. Users are offered the unique flexibility to select between explicit and implicit coupling, depending on the application. The implicit coupling approach is particularly beneficial for applications in this sector because of the cross-coupling between the biological fluid and the highly flexible tissue.
In addition to direct co-simulation, engineering simulation also enables FSI computations through importing/exporting meshes in other native formats as it leverages the power of JAVA and gives users the ability to customize every step of the workflow.

Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) software provides practical solutions for analyzing problems where biological fluids interact with flexible tissue, such as with blood and vessel interactions, and air and lung interactions.
The built-in mapping implemented in engineering simulation tools such as STAR-CCM+ are robust and accurate, and efficiently handles non-conformal meshes while eliminating the need for writing scripts or input files. A multi-quadratic morphing capability robustly and smoothly moves the meshes based on the deformation it receives from the structure’s solver. The resulting mesh conforms to the shape of the deflected structure and the redistribution of the mesh vertices nicely preserves the quality of the original mesh.
Using the FSI capability in conjunction with STAR-CCM+’s high-level meshing technologies, high-fidelity multiphysics, and intuitive user environment results in an FSI capability that is flexible, accurate, robust and efficient.