An Eulerian–Lagrangian moving immersed interface method for simulating burning solids

This study concerns the development of a numerical methodology to conduct conjugate heat and mass transfer simulations of burning and moving solids. The flow is described using an Eulerian representation and the solid described using a Lagrangian finite element (FE) method. The fluid–solid interface is defined using a level set function that is initialized by a surface mesh representation that balances accuracy with the computational cost of re-initializing moving interfaces. A ghost–fluid methodology is implemented that results in low errors in mass and energy conservation. Mass transfer from solid ablation is computed explicitly using surface integration over the solid surface mesh to guarantee enforcement of conservation principles. The introduced methodologies are applied to the study of the burning of carbon-epoxy composites.