Elastic Walls

Submitted by llee0311 on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 20:11

Hello there!

My goal is to simulate particle plugging effect in a channel.

What has been achieved so far:
The fluid flow domain is a long trapezoidal or a wedge shaped box (figure attached).
The BCs are no-slip walls, constant inlet velocity, and constant outlet pressure.
A snapshot of one of the particles plugging results is attached, and you can see the particle accumulation.

Moving forward & questions:
Because there is the accumulation of particles that plugs the channel, I want to simulate elastic walls where they can deform/expand due to the fluid pressure buildup.
I am wondering if it is possible to treat the walls as interconnected particles in LIGGGHTS and have elastic deformation due to fluid pressure.
But even if I do that, how should I tell OpenFOAM to change its boundary walls?

I also searched some topics on the fluid-structure interaction (FSI), particularly on FOAM Extend, which can be another solution to this problem.

Would like to brainstorm a bit and share/get some ideas.

Thanks a lot!
Lee