A meshfree solver for coupled bulk-surface problems with self-organizing surface geometry

Abstract

In many systems, the interaction between a deformable surface or interface and the surrounding bulk fluid is coupled with intrinsic spatiotemporal dynamics within the moving surface. Examples include tumor growth, biological tissue morphogenesis, cardiac mechanics, multi-phase surfactant chemistry, additive manufacturing, clothing wear-and-tear, and reactive combustion flows. Solving such problems requires both geometric computing algorithms to track and resolve the surface and numerical methods to solve the coupled governing equations in the surface and the surrounding bulk phase. Here, we present a fully meshfree numerical solver for such coupled bulk-surface problems with deformable interfaces. The presented solver tracks the surface implicitly, solving for the dynamic surface geometry based on stress balance coupled to surrounding fluid phases. We show convergence for a mass-conserving case on a growing sphere and solve bulk-surface problems with incompressible Navier-Stokes fluids coupled to in-surface nonlinear reaction-diffusion dynamics. Finally, we show a model of biological morphogenesis, solving simultaneously for the dynamic surface shape and the fields on the curved surface with two-way coupling.