A coupled hp‐finite element scheme for the solution of two‐dimensional electrostrictive materials

As part of the ongoing research within the field of computational analysis for the coupled electro‐magneto‐mechanical response of smart materials, the problem of linearised electrostriction is revisited and analysed for the first time using the framework of hp‐finite elements. The governing equations modelling the physics of the dielectric are suitably modified by introducing a new total Cauchy stress tensor (A. Dorfmann and R.W. Ogden. Nonlinear electroelasticity. Acta Mechanica, 174:167–183, 2005), which includes the electrostrictive effect and a staggered partitioned scheme for the numerical solution of the coupling phenomena. With the purpose of benchmarking numerical results, the problem of an infinite electrostrictive plate with a circular/elliptical dielectric insert is revisited. The presented analytical solution is based on the theoretical framework for two‐dimensional electrostriction proposed by Knops (R.J. Knops. Two‐dimensional electrostriction. Quarterly Journal of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, 16:377–388, 1963) and uses classical techniques of complex variable analysis. Our presentation, to the best of our knowledge, provides the first correct closed form expression for the solution to the infinite electrostrictive plate with a circular/elliptical dielectric insert, correcting the errors made in previous presentations of this problem. We use this analytical solution to assess the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the hp‐formulation in the case of nearly incompressible electrostrictive materials. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computational electro‐elasticity and magneto‐elasticity for quasi‐incompressible media immersed in free space

In this work, a mixed variational formulation to simulate quasi‐incompressible electro‐active or magneto‐active polymers immersed in the surrounding free space is presented. A novel domain decomposition is used to disconnect the primary coupled problem and the arbitrary free‐space mesh update problem. Exploiting this decomposition, we describe a block‐iterative approach to solving the linearised multiphysics problem, and a physically and geometrically based, three‐parameter method to update the free space mesh. Several application‐driven example problems are implemented to demonstrate the robustness of the mixed formulation for both electro‐elastic and magneto‐elastic problems involving both finite deformations and quasi‐incompressible media. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Monolithic modelling of electro‐mechanical coupling in micro‐structures

The purpose of the present work is to model and to simulate the coupling between the electric and mechanical fields. A new finite element approach is proposed to model strong electro‐mechanical coupling in micro‐structures with capacitive effect. The proposed approach is based on a monolithic formulation: the electric and the mechanical fields are solved simultaneously in the same formulation. This method provides a tangent stiffness matrix for the total coupled problem which allows to determine accurately the pull‐in voltage and the natural frequency of electro‐mechanical systems such as MEMs. To illustrate the methodology results are shown for the analysis of a micro‐bridge. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Domain decomposition methods for parallel solution of shape sensitivity analysis problems

This paper presents the implementation of advanced domain decomposition techniques for parallel solution of large‐scale shape sensitivity analysis problems. The methods presented in this study are based on the FETI method proposed by Farhat and Roux which is a dual domain decomposition implementation. Two variants of the basic FETI method have been implemented in this study: (i) FETI‐1 where the rigid‐body modes of the floating subdomains are computed explicitly. (ii) FETI‐2 where the local problem at each subdomain is solved by the PCG method and the rigid‐body modes are computed explicitly. A two‐level iterative method is proposed particularly tailored to solve re‐analysis type of problems, where the dual domain decomposition method is incorporated in the preconditioning step of a subdomain global PCG implementation. The superiority of this two‐level iterative solver is demonstrated with a number of numerical tests in serial as well as in parallel computing environments. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cyclic steady states of nonlinear electro‐mechanical devices excited at resonance

We present an efficient numerical method to solve for cyclic steady states of nonlinear electro‐mechanical devices excited at resonance. Many electro‐mechanical systems are designed to operate at resonance, where the ramp‐up simulation to steady state is computationally very expensive – especially when low damping is present. The proposed method relies on a Newton–Krylov shooting scheme for the direct calculation of the cyclic steady state, as opposed to a naïve transient time‐stepping from zero initial conditions. We use a recently developed high‐order Eulerian–Lagrangian finite element method in combination with an energy‐preserving dynamic contact algorithm in order to solve the coupled electro‐mechanical boundary value problem. The nonlinear coupled equations are evolved by means of an operator split of the mechanical and electrical problem with an explicit as well as implicit approach. The presented benchmark examples include the first three fundamental modes of a vibrating nanotube, as well as a micro‐electro‐mechanical disk resonator in dynamic steady contact. For the examples discussed, we observe power law computational speed‐ups of the form S  = 0.6·ξ  ^? 0.8, where ξ is the linear damping ratio of the corresponding resonance frequency. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A methodology for fast finite element modeling of electrostatically actuated MEMS

In this paper, a methodology is proposed for expediting the coupled electro‐mechanical finite element modeling of electrostatically actuated MEMS. The proposed methodology eliminates the need for repeated finite element meshing and subsequent electrostatic modeling of the device during mechanical deformation. We achieve this by using an approximation of the charge density on the movable electrode in the deformed geometry in terms of the charge density in the non‐deformed geometry and displacements of the movable electrode. The electrostatic problem has to be solved only once and thus this method speeds up the coupled electro‐mechanical simulation process. The proposed methodology is demonstrated through its application to the modeling of four MEMS devices with varying length‐to‐gap ratios, multiple dielectrics and complicated geometries. Its accuracy is assessed through comparisons of its results with results obtained using both analytical solutions and finite element solutions obtained using ANSYS. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variational principles in dissipative electro‐magneto‐mechanics: A framework for the macro‐modeling of functional materials

This paper presents a general framework for the macroscopic, continuum‐based formulation and numerical implementation of dissipative functional materials with electro‐magneto‐mechanical couplings based on incremental variational principles. We focus on quasi‐static problems, where mechanical inertia effects and time‐dependent electro‐magnetic couplings are a priori neglected and a time‐dependence enters the formulation only through a possible rate‐dependent dissipative material response. The underlying variational structure of non‐reversible coupled processes is related to a canonical constitutive modeling approach, often addressed to so‐called standard dissipative materials. It is shown to have enormous consequences with respect to all aspects of the continuum‐based modeling in macroscopic electro‐magneto‐mechanics. At first, the local constitutive modeling of the coupled dissipative response, i.e. stress, electric and magnetic fields versus strain, electric displacement and magnetic induction, is shown to be variational based, governed by incremental minimization and saddle‐point principles. Next, the implications on the formulation of boundary‐value problems are addressed, which appear in energy‐based formulations as minimization principles and in enthalpy‐based formulations in the form of saddle‐point principles. Furthermore, the material stability of dissipative electro‐magneto‐mechanics on the macroscopic level is defined based on the convexity/concavity of incremental potentials. We provide a comprehensive outline of alternative variational structures and discuss details of their computational implementation, such as formulation of constitutive update algorithms and finite element solvers. From the viewpoint of constitutive modeling, including the understanding of the stability in coupled electro‐magneto‐mechanics, an energy‐based formulation is shown to be the canonical setting. From the viewpoint of the computational convenience, an enthalpy‐based formulation is the most convenient setting. A numerical investigation of a multiferroic composite demonstrates perspectives of the proposed framework with regard to the future design of new functional materials. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variational multiscale enrichment for modeling coupled mechano‐diffusion problems

In this paper, a new multiscale–multiphysics computational methodology is devised for the analysis of coupled diffusion–deformation problems. The proposed methodology is based on the variational multiscale principles. The basic premise of the approach is accurate fine‐scale representation at a small subdomain where it is known a priori that important physical phenomena are likely to occur. The response within the remainder of the problem domain is idealized on the basis of coarse‐scale representation. We apply this idea to evaluate a coupled mechano‐diffusion problem that idealizes the response of titanium structures subjected to a thermo–chemo–mechanical environment. The proposed methodology is used to devise a multiscale model in which the transport of oxygen into titanium is modeled as a diffusion process, whereas the mechanical response is idealized using concentration‐dependent elasticity equations. A coupled solution strategy based on operator split is formulated to evaluate the coupled multiphysics and multiscale problem. Numerical experiments are conducted to assess the accuracy and computational performance of the proposed methodology. Numerical simulations indicate that the variational multiscale enrichment has reasonable accuracy and is computationally efficient in modeling the coupled mechano‐diffusion response. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coupled mechanical‐charge/dipole molecular dynamics finite element method,with multi‐scale applications to the design of graphene nano‐devices

A new Molecular Dynamics Finite Element Method (MDFEM) with a coupled mechanical‐charge/dipole formulation is proposed. The equilibrium equations of Molecular Dynamics (MD) are embedded exactly within the computationally more favourable Finite Element Method (FEM). This MDFEM can readily implement any force field because the constitutive relations are explicitly uncoupled from the corresponding geometric element topologies. This formal uncoupling allows to differentiate between chemical‐constitutive, geometric and mixed‐mode instabilities. Different force fields, including bond‐order reactive and polarisable fluctuating charge–dipole potentials, are implemented exactly in both explicit and implicit dynamic commercial finite element code. The implicit formulation allows for larger length and time scales and more varied eigenvalue‐based solution strategies. The proposed multi‐physics and multi‐scale compatible MDFEM is shown to be equivalent to MD, as demonstrated by examples of fracture in carbon nanotubes (CNT), and electric charge distribution in graphene, but at a considerably reduced computational cost. The proposed MDFEM is shown to scale linearly, with concurrent continuum FEM multi‐scale couplings allowing for further computational savings. Moreover, novel conformational analyses of pillared graphene structures (PGS) are produced. The proposed model finds potential applications in the parametric topology and numerical design studies of nano‐structures for desired electro‐mechanical properties (e.g. stiffness, toughness and electric field induced vibrational/electron‐emission properties). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A unified formalism for various coupling analyses of composite laminates and its applications to crack problems

Abstract

In this paper, a unified formalism is proposed to deal with several different coupling analyses of composites. This formalism is established from the Stroh formalism for two‐dimensional problems and the Stroh‐like formalism for coupled stretching‐bending problems and their extensions to the magneto‐electro‐elastic coupling analysis. Since different coupling conditions can be represented by one unified formalism, if for particular problems the boundary conditions of different coupling problems can be written in one unified form, the final solution should also have the same form for different types of problems. To show the usefulness and powerfulness of this unified formalism, a typical example of crack problems is presented in this paper.     

Dimension reduction in stochastic modeling of coupled problems

Coupled problems with various combinations of multiple physics, scales, and domains are found in numerous areas of science and engineering. A key challenge in the formulation and implementation of corresponding coupled numerical models is to facilitate the communication of information across physics, scale, and domain interfaces, as well as between the iterations of solvers used for response computations. In a probabilistic context, any information that is to be communicated between subproblems or iterations should be characterized by an appropriate probabilistic representation. Although the number of sources of uncertainty can be expected to be large in most coupled problems, our contention is that exchanged probabilistic information often resides in a considerably lower dimensional space than the sources themselves. This work thus presents an investigation into the characterization of the exchanged information by a reduced‐dimensional representation and in particular by an adaptation of the Karhunen‐Loève decomposition. The effectiveness of the proposed dimension–reduction methodology is analyzed and demonstrated through a multiphysics problem relevant to nuclear engineering. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parallel two‐level domain decomposition based one‐shot method for shape optimization problems

A two‐level domain decomposition method is introduced for general shape optimization problems constrained by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The optimization problem is first discretized with a finite element method on an unstructured moving mesh that is implicitly defined without assuming that the computational domain is known and then solved by some one‐shot Lagrange–Newton–Krylov–Schwarz algorithms. In this approach, the shape of the domain, its corresponding finite element mesh, the flow fields and their corresponding Lagrange multipliers are all obtained computationally in a single solve of a nonlinear system of equations. Highly scalable parallel algorithms are absolutely necessary to solve such an expensive system. The one‐level domain decomposition method works reasonably well when the number of processors is not large. Aiming for machines with a large number of processors and robust nonlinear convergence, we introduce a two‐level inexact Newton method with a hybrid two‐level overlapping Schwarz preconditioner. As applications, we consider the shape optimization of a cannula problem and an artery bypass problem in 2D. Numerical experiments show that our algorithm performs well on a supercomputer with over 1000 processors for problems with millions of unknowns. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time and frequency domain analysis of piezoelectric energy harvesters by monolithic finite element modeling

The successful design of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices relies upon the identification of optimal geometrical and material configurations to maximize the power output for a specific band of excitation frequencies. Extendable predictive models and associated approximate solution methods are essential for analysis of a wide variety of future advanced energy harvesting devices involving more complex geometries and material distributions. Based on a holistic continuum mechanics modeling approach to the multi‐physics energy harvesting problem, this article proposes a monolithic numerical solution scheme using a mixed‐hybrid 3‐dimensional finite element formulation of the coupled governing equations for analysis in time and frequency domain. The weak form of the electromechanical/circuit system uses velocities and potential rate within the piezoelectric structure, free boundary charge on the electrodes, and potential at the level of the generic electric circuit as global degrees of freedom. The approximation of stress and dielectric displacement follows the work by Pian, Sze, and Pan. Results obtained with the proposed model are compared with analytical results for the reduced‐order model of a cantilevered bimorph harvester with tip mass reported in the literature. The flexibility of the method is demonstrated by studying the influence of partial electrode coverage on the generated power output.     

A computational model for the finite element analysis of thermoplasticity coupled with ductile damage at finite strains

An updated Lagrangian implicit FEM model for the analysis of large thermo‐mechanically coupled hyperelastic‐viscoplastic deformations of isotropic porous materials is considered. An appropriate framework for constitutive modelling is introduced that includes a stress‐free thermally expanded configuration and a plastically deformed unstressed damaged configuration. A two‐level iterative scheme is employed at each time increment to solve the field equations governing the conservation of momentum (mechanical step) and the conservation of energy (thermal step) for the coupled thermo‐mechanical problem. Exact linearizations for the calculation of the tangent stiffness are performed in each of these solution steps. A fully implicit, thermo‐mechanically coupled and incrementally objective Euler‐backward radial return based map is developed for the time integration of the constitutive equations. The present model is used to analyse a number of benchmark examples including metal forming processes wherein temperature and the accumulated damage play an important role in influencing the deformation mechanism and the nature of the deformed workpiece. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiscale seamless‐domain method for solving nonlinear problems using statistical estimation methodology

This article presents a nonlinear solver combining regression analysis and a multiscale simulation scheme. First, the proposed method repeats microscopic analysis of a local simulation domain, which is extracted from the entire global domain, to statistically estimate the relation(s) between the value of a dependent variable at a point and values at surrounding points. The relation is called regression function. Subsequent global analysis reveals the behavior of the global domain with only coarse‐grained points using the regression function quickly at low computational cost, which can be accomplished using a multiscale numerical solver, called the seamless‐domain method. The objective of the study is to solve a nonlinear problem accurately and at low cost by combining the 2 techniques. We present an example problem of a nonlinear steady‐state heat conduction analysis of a heterogeneous material. The proposed model using fewer than 1000 points generates a solution with precision similar to that of a standard finite‐element solution using hundreds of thousands of nodes. To investigate the relationship between the accuracy and computational time, we apply the seamless‐domain method under varying conditions such as the number of iterations of the prior analysis for statistical data learning.     

A domain decomposition method for concurrent coupling of multiscale models

Motivated by atomistic‐to‐continuum coupling, we consider a fine‐scale problem defined on a small region embedded in a much larger coarse‐scale domain and propose an efficient solution technique on the basis of the domain decomposition framework. Specifically, we develop a nonoverlapping Schwarz method with two important features: (i) the use of an efficient approximation of the Dirichlet‐to‐Neumann map for the interface conditions; and (ii) the utilization of the inherent scale separation in the solution. The paper includes a detailed formulation of the proposed interface condition, along with the illustration of its effectiveness by using simple but representative numerical experiments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subdomain radial basis collocation method for fracture mechanics

The direct approximation of strong form using radial basis functions (RBFs), commonly called the radial basis collocation method (RBCM), has been recognized as an effective means for solving boundary value problems. Nevertheless, the non‐compactness of the RBFs precludes its application to problems with local features, such as fracture problems, among others. This work attempts to apply RBCM to fracture mechanics by introducing a domain decomposition technique with proper interface conditions. The proposed method allows (1) natural representation of discontinuity across the crack surfaces and (2) enrichment of crack‐tip solution in a local subdomain. With the proper domain decomposition and interface conditions, exponential convergence rate can be achieved while keeping the discrete system well‐conditioned. The analytical prediction and numerical results demonstrate that an optimal dimension of the near‐tip subdomain exists. The effectiveness of the proposed method is justified by the mathematical analysis and demonstrated by the numerical examples. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coupled adjoint‐based sensitivities in large‐displacement fluid‐structure interaction using algorithmic differentiation

A methodology for the calculation of gradients with respect to design parameters in general fluid‐structure interaction problems is presented. It is based on fixed‐point iterations on the adjoint variables of the coupled system using algorithmic differentiation. This removes the need for the construction of the analytic Jacobian for the coupled physical problem, which is the usual limitation for the computation of adjoints in most realistic applications. The formulation is shown to be amenable to partitioned solution methods for the adjoint equations. It also poses no restrictions to the nonlinear physics in either the fluid or structural field, other than the existence of a converged solution to the primal problem from which to compute the adjoints. We demonstrate the applicability of this procedure and the accuracy of the computed gradients on coupled problems involving viscous flows with geometrical and material nonlinearities in the structural domain.     

Solution of FE‐BE coupled eigenvalue problems for the prediction of the vibro‐acoustic behavior of ship‐like structures

To predict the vibro‐acoustic behavior of structures, both a structural problem and an acoustic problem have to be solved. For thin structures immersed in water, a strong interaction between the structural domain and fluid domain occurs. This significantly alters the resonance frequencies. In this work, the structure is modeled by the finite element method. The exterior acoustic problem is solved by a fast boundary element method employing hierarchical matrices. An FE‐BE formulation is presented, which allows the solution of the coupled eigenvalue problem and thus the prediction of the coupled eigenfrequencies and mode shapes. It is based on a Schur complement formulation of the FE‐BE system yielding a generalized eigenvalue problem. A Krylov–Schur solver is applied for its efficient solution. Hereby, the compressibility of the fluid is neglected. The coupled eigensolution is then used for a model reduction strategy allowing fast frequency sweep calculations. The efficiency of the proposed formulations is investigated with respect to memory consumption, accuracy, and computation time. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.