Resumen: An immersed finite element method for solid–fluid interaction is presented with application focus on highly deformable elastic bodies in a Stokes flow environment. The method is based on a global balance equation which combines the solid and fluid momentum balances, the fluid mass balance and, in weak form, the interface conditions. By means of an Updated Lagrangian description for finite elasticity, only one analysis mesh is used, where the solid particles are backtracked in order to preserve the deformation history. The method results in a full coupling of the solid-fluid system which is solved by an exact Newton method. The location of the material interface is captured by a signed distance function and updated according to the computed displacement increments and the help of an explicit surface parameterisation; no body-fitted volume meshes are needed. Special emphasis is placed on the accurate integration of finite elements traversed by the interface and the related numerical stability of the shape function basis. A number of applications for compressible Neo-Hookean solids subject to creeping flow are presented, motivated by microfluidic experimentation in mechanobiology. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1186/s40323-016-0061-0 Año: 2016 Publicado en: Advanced modeling and simulation in engineering sciences 3, 9 (2016), [31 pp.] ISSN: 2213-7467 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.0 - Applied Mathematics - Modeling and Simulation - Engineering (miscellaneous) - Computer Science Applications