Analysis of a bimetallic slab in non-isothermal flow

The main object of this study is to investigate a fluid—structure interaction problem using Newton—Krylov techniques. As a test problem, a bimetallic slab exposed to a non-isothermal flow field is selected. If the metals on the body have different coefficients of thermal expansion, then the structure deflects in the case of a temperature change. In this study, natural convection is the reason for the temperature gradient on the slab. Solution of incompressible Navier—Stokes equations are weakly coupled with the linearized quasi-static thermoelasticity problem. The Stream function—vorticity approach is used to analyse the governing equations of the flow problem and finite differences are used for discretization. The finite-element method is preferred to solve the deflection of the solid which is modelled with plane strain assumption. Matrix-free methodology is utilized in the Newton—Krylov solver. The inexact Newton method is employed along with preconditioned Generalized Minimum RESidual as the linear solver. Domain decomposition is utilized both to ease the solution of the deformed flow geometry and to separate both physics. Several computations are performed for various Rayleigh numbers and various results are presented.