Contact with friction in multi‐material arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian formulations using X‐FEM

A contact method with friction for the multi‐dimensional Lagrangian step in multi‐material arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulations is presented. In our previous research, the extended finite element method (X‐FEM) was used to create independent fields (i.e. velocity, strain rate, force, mass, etc.) for each material in the problem to model contact without friction. The research presented here includes the extension to friction and improvements to the accuracy and robustness of our previous study. The accelerations of the multi‐material nodes are obtained by coupling the material force and mass fields as a function of the prescribed contact; similarly, the velocities of the multi‐material nodes are recalculated using the conservation of momentum when the prescribed contact requires it. The coupling procedures impose the same nodal velocity on the coupled materials in the direction normal to their interface during the time step update. As a result, the overlap of materials is prevented and unwanted separation does not occur. Three different types of contacts are treated: perfectly bonded, frictionless slip, and slip with friction. Example impact problems are solved and the numerical solutions are presented. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An extended finite element formulation for contact in multi‐material arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian calculations

Multi‐material Eulerian and arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian methods were originally developed for solving hypervelocity impact problems, but they are attractive for solving a broad range of problems having large deformations, the evolution of new free surfaces, and chemical reactions. The contact, separation, and slip between two surfaces have traditionally been addressed by the mixture theory, however the accuracy of this approach is severely limited. To improve the accuracy, an extended finite element formulation is developed and example calculations are presented. As a side benefit, the mixture theory is eliminated from the multi‐material formulation, eliminating the issues associated with the equilibration time between adjacent materials. By design, the new formulation is relatively simple to implement in existing multi‐material codes, parallelizes without difficulty, and has a low memory burden. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian finite element analysis of strain localization in transient problems

Non-local models guaranty that finite element computations on strain softening materials remain sound up to failure from a theoretical and computational viewpoint. The non-locality prevents strain localization with zero global dissipation of energy, and consequently finite element calculations converge upon mesh refinements to non-zero width localization zones. One of the major drawbacks of these models is that the element size needed in order to capture the localization zone must be smaller than the internal length. Hence, the total number of degrees of freedom becomes rapidly prohibitive for most engineering applications and there is an obvious need for mesh adaptivity. This paper deals with the application of the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation, well known in hydrodynamics and fluid–structure interaction problems, to transient strain localization in a non-local damageable material. It is shown that the ALE formulation which is employed in large boundary motion problems can also be well suited for non-linear transient analysis of softening materials where localization bands appear. The remeshing strategy is based on the equidistribution of an indicator that quantifies the interelement jump of a selected state variable. Two well known one-dimensional examples illustrate the capabilities of this technique: the first one deals with localization due to a propagating wave in a bar, and the second one studies the wave propagation in a hollow sphere.     

A coupled BEM and arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian FEM model for the solution of two‐dimensional laminar flows in external flow fields

This paper describes a new computational model developed to solve two‐dimensional incompressible viscous flow problems in external flow fields. The model based on the Navier–Stokes equations in primitive variables is able to solve the infinite boundary value problems by extracting the boundary effects on a specified finite computational domain, using the pressure projection method. The external flow field is simulated using the boundary element method by solving a pressure Poisson equation that assumes the pressure as zero at the infinite boundary. The momentum equation of the flow motion is solved using the three‐step finite element method. The arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method is incorporated into the model, to solve the moving boundary problems. The present model is applied to simulate various external flow problems like flow across circular cylinder, acceleration and deceleration of the circular cylinder moving in a still fluid and vibration of the circular cylinder induced by the vortex shedding. The simulation results are found to be very reasonable and satisfactory. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Updated Lagrangian/Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian framework for interaction between a compressible neo‐Hookean structure and an incompressible fluid

We propose a numerical method for a fluid–structure interaction problem. The material of the structure is homogeneous, isotropic, and it can be described by the compressible neo‐Hookean constitutive equation, while the fluid is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations. Our study does not use turbulence model. Updated Lagrangian method is used for the structure and fluid equations are written in Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian coordinates. One global moving mesh is employed for the fluid–structure domain, where the fluid–structure interface is an ‘interior boundary’ of the global mesh. At each time step, we solve a monolithic system of unknown velocity and pressure defined on the global mesh. The continuity of velocity at the interface is automatically satisfied, while the continuity of stress does not appear explicitly in the monolithic fluid–structure system. This method is very fast because at each time step, we solve only one linear system. This linear system was obtained by the linearization of the structure around the previous position in the updated Lagrangian formulation and by the employment of a linear convection term for the fluid. Numerical results are presented. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Lagrangian–Eulerian method with adaptively local ZOOMing approach to solve three-dimensional advection–diffusion transport equations

We present a Lagrangian–Eulerian method with adaptively local ZOOMing and Peak/valley Capturing approach (LEZOOMPC), consisting of advection–diffusion decoupling, backward particle tracking, forward particle tracking, adaptively local zooming, peak/valley capturing, and slave point utilization, to solve three-dimensional advection–diffusion transport equations. This approach and the associated computer code, 3DLEZOOMPC, were developed to circumvent the difficulties associated with the Exact Peak Capturing and Oscillation-Free (EPCOF) scheme, developed earlier by the authors, when it was extended from a one-dimensional space to a three-dimensional space. The accurate results of applying EPCOF to solving two one-dimensional benchmark problems under a variety of conditions have shown the capability of this scheme to eliminate all types of numerical errors associated with the advection term and to keep the maximum computational error to be within the prescribed error tolerance. However, difficulties arose when the EPCOF scheme was extended to a multi-dimensional space mainly due to the geometry. To avoid these geometric difficulties, we modified the EPCOF scheme and named the modified scheme LEZOOMPC. LEZOOMPC uses regularly local zooming for rough elements and peak/valley capturing within subelements to resolve the problems of tetrangulation and boundary source as well as to preserve the shape of concentration distribution. In addition, LEZOOMPC employs the concept of ‘slave points’ to deal with the compatibility problem in the diffusion zooming of the Eulerian step. As a result, not only is the geometrical problem resolved, but also the spirit of EPCOF is retained. Application of 3DLEZOOMPC to solving an advection-decay and a boundary source benchmark problems indicates its capability in solving advection transport problems accurately to within any prescribed error tolerance by using mesh Courant number ranging from 0 to infinity. Demonstration of using 3DLEZOOMPC to solve an advection–diffusion benchmark problem shows how the numerical solution is improved with the increment of the diffusion zooming factors. 3DLEZOOMPC could solve advection–diffusion transport problems accurately by using mesh Peclet numbers ranging from 0 to infinity and very large time-step size. The size of time-step is related to both the diffusion coefficients and mesh sizes. Hence, it is limited only by the diffusion solver. The application of this approach to a two-dimensional space has been demonstrated earlier in the paper entitled ‘A Lagrangian–Eulerian method with adaptively local zooming and peak/valley capturing approach to solve two-dimensional advection–diffusion transport equations’. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A PARTICLE TRACKING TECHNIQUE FOR THE LAGRANGIAN–EULERIAN FINITE ELEMENT METHOD IN MULTI-DIMENSIONS

This paper presents a multi-dimensional particle tracking technique for applying the Lagrangian–Eulerian finite element method to solve transport equations in transient-state simulations. In the Lagrangian– Eulerian approach, the advection term is handled in the Lagrangian step so that the associated numerical errors can be considerably reduced. It is important to have an adequate particle tracking technique for computing advection accurately in the Lagrangian step. The particle tracking technique presented here is designed to trace fictitious particles in the real-world flow field where the flow velocity is either measured or computed at a limited number of locations. The technique, named ‘in-element’ particle tracking, traces fictitious particles on an element-by-element basis. Given a velocity field, a fictitious particle is traced one element by one element until either a boundary is encountered or the available time is completely consumed. For the tracking within an element, the element is divided into a desired number of subelements with the interpolated velocity computed at all nodes of the subelements. A fictitious particle, thus, is traced one subelement by one subelement within the element. The desired number of subelements can be determined based on the complexity of the flow field being considered. The more complicated the flow field is, the more subelements are needed to achieve accurate particle tracking results. A single-velocity approach can be used to efficiently perform particle tracking in a smooth flow field, while an average-velocity approach can be employed to increase the tracking accuracy for more complex flow fields.     

An efficient solution method for finite element ring‐rolling simulation

Finite element ring‐rolling simulation gives rise to poor conditioned non‐linear equations that require repeated solution. The associated computational costs are extreme making analysis impracticable in industry. This paper is concerned with a solution strategy that addresses this problem and involves the combined use of an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) formulation and a successive preconditioned conjugate gradient method (SPCGM). This approach, coupled to a finite element flow formulation, is shown to offer considerable computational savings. Through the combined use of the ALE flow formulation and the SPCGM the stability and condition of the non‐linear systems is enhanced. This purely iterative approach takes advantage of the slowly evolving velocity field and the self‐preconditioning offered by the SPCGM. The performance of the solver is compared against well‐known alternatives for varying problem sizes. The approach is shown to be generic but in particular makes ring‐rolling simulation a more practicable proposition. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A three‐dimensional hybrid meshfree‐Cartesian scheme for fluid–body interaction

A numerical method based on a hybrid meshfree‐Cartesian grid is developed for solving three‐dimensional fluid–solid interaction (FSI) problems involving solid bodies undergoing large motion. The body is discretized and enveloped by a cloud of meshfree nodes. The motion of the body is tracked by convecting the meshfree nodes against a background of Cartesian grid points. Spatial discretization of second‐order accuracy is accomplished by the combination of a generalized finite difference (GFD) method and conventional finite difference (FD) method, which are applied to the meshfree and Cartesian nodes, respectively. Error minimization in GFD is carried out by singular value decomposition. The discretized equations are integrated in time via a second‐order fractional step projection method. A time‐implicit iterative procedure is employed to compute the new/evolving position of the immersed bodies together with the dynamically coupled solution of the flow field. The present method is applied on problems of free falling spheres and tori in quiescent flow and freely rotating spheres in simple shear flow. Good agreement with published results shows the ability of the present hybrid meshfree‐Cartesian grid scheme to achieve good accuracy. An application of the method to the self‐induced propulsion of a deforming fish‐like swimmer further demonstrates the capability and potential of the present approach for solving complex FSI problems in 3D. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigation of fluid–structure interactions using a velocity‐linked P2/P1 finite element method and the generalized‐ α method

A velocity‐linked algorithm for solving unsteady fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems in a fully coupled manner is developed using the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method. The P2/P1 finite element is used to spatially discretize the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations and structural equations, and the generalized‐ α method is adopted for temporal discretization. Common velocity variables are employed at the fluid–structure interface for the strong coupling of both equations. Because of the velocity‐linked formulation, kinematic compatibility is automatically satisfied and forcing terms do not need to be calculated explicitly. Both the numerical stability and the convergence characteristics of an iterative solver for the coupled algorithm are investigated by solving the FSI problem of flexible tube flows. It is noteworthy that the generalized‐ α method with small damping is free from unstable velocity fields. However, the convergence characteristics of the coupled system deteriorate greatly for certain Poisson's ratios so that direct solvers are essential for these cases. Furthermore, the proposed method is shown to clearly display the advantage of considering FSI in the simulation of flexible tube flows, while enabling much larger time‐steps than those adopted in some previous studies. This is possible through the strong coupling of the fluid and structural equations by employing common primitive variables. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian framework with exact mass conservation for the numerical simulation of 2D rising bubble problem

An arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian framework, which combines the advantages of both Lagrangian and Eulerian methods, is presented to solve incompressible multiphase flow problems. The incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations are discretized using the side‐centered unstructured finite volume method, where the velocity vector components are defined at the midpoint of each cell face, while the pressure term is defined at element centroids. The pressure field is treated to be discontinuous across the interface with the discontinuous treatment of density and viscosity. The surface tension term at the interface is treated as a force tangent to the interface and computed with several different approaches including the use of Legendre polynomials. In addition, the several different discretizations of interface kinematic boundary conditions are investigated. For the application of the interface kinematic boundary condition, a special attention is given to satisfy both local and global discrete geometric conservation law to conserve the total mass of both species at machine precision. The mesh vertices are deformed by solving the linear elasticity equations due to the normal displacement of interface. The resulting algebraic equations are solved in a fully coupled manner, and a one‐level restricted additive Schwarz preconditioner with a block‐incomplete factorization within each partitioned subdomain is used for the resulting fully coupled system. The method is validated by simulating the classical benchmark problem of a single rising bubble in a viscous fluid due to buoyancy. The results of numerical simulations are found out to be in an excellent agreement with the earlier results in the literature. The mass of the bubble is conserved, and discontinuous pressure field is obtained to avoid errors due to the incompressibility condition in the vicinity of the interface, where the density and viscosity jumps occur.     

Numerical simulation of flapping wings using a panel method and a high‐order Navier–Stokes solver

The design of efficient flapping wings for human engineered micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) has long been an elusive goal, in part because of the large size of the design space. One strategy for overcoming this difficulty is to use a multifidelity simulation strategy that appropriately balances computation time and accuracy. We compare two models with different geometric and physical fidelity. The low‐fidelity model is an inviscid doublet lattice method with infinitely thin lifting surfaces. The high‐fidelity model is a high‐order accurate discontinuous Galerkin Navier–Stokes solver, which uses an accurate representation of the flapping wing geometry. To compare the performance of the two methods, we consider a model flapping wing with an elliptical planform and an analytically prescribed spanwise wing twist, at size scales relevant to MAVs. Our results show that in many cases, including those with mild separation, low‐fidelity simulations can accurately predict integrated forces, provide insight into the flow structure, indicate regions of likely separation, and shed light on design–relevant quantities. But for problems with significant levels of separation, higher‐fidelity methods are required to capture the details of the flow field. Inevitably high‐fidelity simulations are needed to establish the limits of validity of the lower fidelity simulations.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A three‐invariant hardening plasticity for numerical simulation of powder forming processes via the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian FE model

In this paper, a three‐invariant cap plasticity model with an isotropic hardening rule is presented for numerical simulation of powder compaction processes. A general form is developed for single‐cap plasticity which can be compared with some common double‐surface plasticity models proposed for powders in literature. The constitutive elasto‐plastic matrix and its components are derived based on the definition of yield surface, hardening parameter and non‐linear elastic behaviour, as function of relative density of powder. Different aspects of the new single plasticity are illustrated by generating the classical plasticity models as special cases of the proposed model. The procedure for determination of powder parameters is described by fitting the model to reproduce data from triaxial compression and confining pressure experiments. The three‐invariant cap plasticity is performed within the framework of an arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian formulation, in order to predict the non‐uniform relative density distribution during large deformation of powder die pressing. In ALE formulation, the reference configuration is used for describing the motion, instead of material configuration in Lagrangian, and spatial configuration in Eulerian formulation. This formulation introduces some convective terms in the finite element equations and consists of two phases. Each time step is analysed according to Lagrangian phase until required convergence is attained. Then, the Eulerian phase is applied to keep mesh configuration regular. Because of relative displacement between mesh and material, all dependent variables such as stress and strain are converted through the Eulerian phase. Finally, the numerical schemes are examined for efficiency and accuracy in the modelling of a rotational flanged component, an automotive component, a conical shaped‐charge liner and a connecting‐rod. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mesh motion techniques for the ALE formulation in 3D large deformation problems

Efficient mesh motion techniques are a key issue to achieve satisfactory results in the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian (ALE) finite element formulation when simulating large deformation problems such as metal‐forming. In the updated Lagrangian (UL) formulation, mesh and material movement are attached and an excessive mesh distortion usually appears. By uncoupling mesh movement from material movement, the ALE formulation can relocate the mesh to avoid distortion. To facilitate the calculation process, the ALE operator is split into two steps at each analysis time step: UL step (where deformation due to loading is calculated without convective terms) and Eulerian step (where mesh motion is applied). In this work, mesh motion is performed by new nodal relocation methods, developed for eight‐node hexahedral elements, which can move internal and boundary nodes, improving and concentrating the mesh in critical zones. After mesh motion, data is transferred from the UL mesh to the relocated mesh using an expansion of stresses in a Taylor's series. Two numerical applications are presented, comparing results of UL and ALE formulation with results found in the literature. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the optimum support size in meshfree methods: A variational adaptivity approach with maximum‐entropy approximants

We present a method for the automatic adaption of the support size of meshfree basis functions in the context of the numerical approximation of boundary value problems stemming from a minimum principle. The method is based on a variational approach, and the central idea is that the variational principle selects both the discretized physical fields and the discretization parameters, here those defining the support size of each basis function. We consider local maximum‐entropy approximation schemes, which exhibit smooth basis functions with respect to both space and the discretization parameters (the node location and the locality parameters). We illustrate by the Poisson, linear and non‐linear elasticity problems the effectivity of the method, which produces very accurate solutions with very coarse discretizations and finds unexpected patterns of the support size of the shape functions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the design of energy–momentum integration schemes for arbitrary continuum formulations. Applications to classical and chaotic motion of shells

The construction of energy–momentum methods depends heavily on three kinds of non‐linearities: (1) the geometric (non‐linearity of the strain–displacement relation), (2) the material (non‐linearity of the elastic constitutive law), and (3) the one exhibited in displacement‐dependent loading. In previous works, the authors have developed a general method which is valid for any kind of geometric non‐linearity. In this paper, we extend the method and combine it with a treatment of material non‐linearity as well as that exhibited in force terms. In addition, the dynamical formulation is presented in a general finite element framework where enhanced strains are incorporated as well. The non‐linearity of the constitutive law necessitates a new treatment of the enhanced strains in order to retain the energy conservation property. Use is made of the logarithmic strain tensor which allows for a highly non‐linear material law, while preserving the advantage of considering non‐linear vibrations of classical metallic structures. Various examples and applications to classical and non‐classical vibrations and non‐linear motion of shells are presented, including (1) chaotic motion of arches, cylinders and caps using a linear constitutive law and (2) large overall motion and non‐linear vibration of shells using non‐linear constitutive law. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive finite element approximation of multiphysics problems: A fluid–structure interaction model problem

In this paper we consider finite element simulation of the mechanical response of an elastic solid immersed into a viscous incompressible fluid flow. For simplicity, we assume that the mechanics of the solid is governed by linear elasticity and the motion of the fluid by the Stokes equation. For this one‐way coupled multiphysics problem we derive an a posteriori error estimate using duality techniques. Based on the estimate we propose an adaptive algorithm that automatically constructs a suitable mesh for the fluid and solid computational domains given a specific goal quantity for the elastic problem. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An assessment of using the predictor–corrector technique to solve reactive transport equations

We examined, through comparison among the full‐coupling (FC), operator‐splitting (OS), and predictor–corrector (PC) techniques, the effectiveness of using the PC technique to solve depth‐averaged reactive transport equations in the shallow water domain. Our investigation has led to three major conclusions. Firstly, both the OS and PC techniques can efficiently solve reactive transport equations because the advection–diffusion transport equations are solved outside the non‐linear iteration loop and the reaction equations are solved node by node. However, these two techniques may risk sacrificing computational accuracy. Secondly, the OS or PC technique incorporated with the Lagrangian–Eulerian (LE) approach can handle boundary sources more precisely than alternatively with the conventional Eulerian (CE) approach. Thirdly, with the LE approach incorporated, the numerical results from the three techniques agreed highly with one another except when diffusion became significant. In this case, the PC technique's result still matched well with the FC technique's result, but differences between the OS and FC techniques' results arose as diffusion increased. Based on this study, we recommend to apply as a first step the PC technique to solving reactive transport equations with respect to both computational efficiency and accuracy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.