A recent advance in CFD is the ability to allow mesh deformation during the solution process. This can be accomplished through several techniques including mesh deformation through spring stiffness techniques, localized remeshing and the structured addition and removal of cells. Additionally, equations of motion and/or structural deformations can be solved for components and used to guide their trajectories or shape during the solution process.
PMI has used mesh deformation techniques to analyze a gear pump, to analyze complete compressors with structural coupling to solve for the valve motions and to complete a 6 degree of freedom motion analysis.