Finite element formulations of strain gradient theory for microstructures and the C0–1 patch test

Based on finite element formulations for the strain gradient theory of microstructures, a convergence criterion for the C^0–1 patch test is introduced, and a new approach to devise strain gradient finite elements that can pass the C^0–1 patch test is proposed. The displacement functions of several plane triangular elements, which satisfy the C⁰ continuity and weak C¹ continuity conditions are evaluated by the C^0–1 patch test. The difference between the proposed C^0–1 patch test and the C⁰ constant stress and C¹ constant curvature patch tests is elucidated. An 18-DOF plane strain gradient triangular element (RCT9+RT9), which passes the C^0–1 patch test and has no spurious zero energy modes, is proposed. Numerical examples are employed to examine the performance of the proposed element by carrying out the C^0–1 patch test and eigenvalue test. The proposed element is found to be without spurious zero energy modes, and it possesses higher accuracy compared with other strain gradient elements. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved implementation and robustness study of the X‐FEM for stress analysis around cracks

Numerical crack propagation schemes were augmented in an elegant manner by the X‐FEM method. The use of special tip enrichment functions, as well as a discontinuous function along the sides of the crack allows one to do a complete crack analysis virtually without modifying the underlying mesh, which is of industrial interest, especially when a numerical model for crack propagation is desired. This paper improves the implementation of the X‐FEM method for stress analysis around cracks in three ways. First, the enrichment strategy is revisited. The conventional approach uses a ‘topological’ enrichment (only the elements touching the front are enriched). We suggest a ‘geometrical’ enrichment in which a given domain size is enriched. The improvements obtained with this enrichment are discussed. Second, the conditioning of the X‐FEM both for topological and geometrical enrichments is studied. A preconditioner is introduced so that ‘off the shelf’ iterative solver packages can be used and perform as well on X‐FEM matrices as on standard FEM matrices. The preconditioner uses a local (nodal) Cholesky based decomposition. Third, the numerical integration scheme to build the X‐FEM stiffness matrix is dramatically improved for tip enrichment functions by the use of an ad hoc integration scheme. A 2D benchmark problem is designed to show the improvements and the robustness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Harmonic enrichment functions: A unified treatment of multiple,intersecting and branched cracks in the extended finite element method

A unifying procedure to numerically compute enrichment functions for elastic fracture problems with the extended finite element method is presented. Within each element that is intersected by a crack, the enrichment function for the crack is obtained via the solution of the Laplace equation with Dirichlet and vanishing Neumann boundary conditions. A single algorithm emanates for the enrichment field for multiple cracks as well as intersecting and branched cracks, without recourse to special cases, which provides flexibility over the existing approaches in which each case is treated separately. Numerical integration is rendered to be simple—there is no need for partitioning of the finite elements into conforming subdivisions for the integration of discontinuous or weakly singular kernels. Stress intensity factor computations for different crack configurations are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and versatility of the proposed technique. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fourth‐order compact scheme for the Helmholtz equation: Alpha‐interpolation of FEM and FDM stencils

We propose a fourth‐order compact scheme on structured meshes for the Helmholtz equation given by R(φ):=f( x )+Δφ+ξ²φ=0. The scheme consists of taking the alpha‐interpolation of the Galerkin finite element method and the classical central finite difference method. In 1D, this scheme is identical to the alpha‐interpolation method (J. Comput. Appl. Math. 1982; 8 (1):15–19) and in 2D making the choice α=0.5 we recover the generalized fourth‐order compact Padé approximation (J. Comput. Phys. 1995; 119 :252–270; Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg 1998; 163 :343–358) (therein using the parameter γ=2). We follow (SIAM Rev. 2000; 42 (3):451–484; Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg 1995; 128 :325–359) for the analysis of this scheme and its performance on square meshes is compared with that of the quasi‐stabilized FEM (Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg 1995; 128 :325–359). In particular, we show that the relative phase error of the numerical solution and the local truncation error of this scheme for plane wave solutions diminish at the rate O((ξ?)⁴), where ξ, ? represent the wavenumber and the mesh size, respectively. An expression for the parameter α is given that minimizes the maximum relative phase error in a sense that will be explained in Section 4.5. Convergence studies of the error in the L² norm, the H¹ semi‐norm and the l^∞ Euclidean norm are done and the pollution effect is found to be small. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.