Finite-element simulation of incompressible fluid flow in an elastic vessel

Finite-element simulation was performed to predict the incompressible Navier-Stokes flow in a domain, partly bounded by an elastic vessel, which is allowed to vary with time. Besides satisfying the physical conservation laws, both surface and the volume conservation laws are satisfied at the discrete level for ensuring the balance between physical and geometrical variables. Several problems which are amenable to analytical solutions were tested for validating the method. The simulated results are observed to agree favourably with analytical solutions. Having verified the applicability of the finite-element code to problems involving moving grids, we consider an incompressible fluid flow bounded by rigid and elastic vessel walls. Our emphasis was placed on the validation of the formulation developed within the moving-grid framework