Efficient Solvers for Fluid-mediated Impact of Soft Solids
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The formation of contact between a soft solid and a rigid interface in a fluid-mediated environment is a fundamental problem with applications in the broad area of soft lubrication. Prior studies have shown that when a soft elastic indenter with a locally spherical leading edge approaches a surface, elastic deformation can cause contact to initiate in an annular region rather than at the tip center. The resulting fluid entrapment between the solid and the interface reduces the effective contact area, leading to undesirable outcomes such as diminished grip in soft robotic systems or porosity in inkjet bioprinting. In this talk, I will present a novel boundary-element method (BEM) discretization of the elastohydrodynamic problem (EHL) that is able to account for different axisymmetric indenter shapes, and will discuss how the problem structure makes it amenable for efficient resolution in alternative hardware, i.e., GPU and TPU. Apart from providing metrics as to numerical efficiency, I will present results that show optimal axisymmetric shapes that minimize fluid entrapment.
