Finite element analysis of viscous,incompressible fluid flow: Part 2: Applications

The first part of this paper described a general numerical procedure for the analysis of two-dimensional flows of viscous, incompressible fluids, using the finite element method. A number of special computational procedures were also discussed that allowed significant reductions to be made in the computational effort required in the solution of problems. The present paper is devoted to demonstrating the utility of the methods described by the solution of several example problems. The illustrative examples consist of flow in a plane 90° T, flow in a cavity and flow around a circular cylinder.     

Multiscale computational analysis in mechanics using finite calculus: an introduction

The paper introduces a general procedure for computational analysis of a wide class of multiscale problems in mechanics using a finite calculus (FIC) formulation. The FIC approach is based in expressing the governing equations in mechanics accepting that the domain where the standard balance laws are established has a finite size. This introduces naturally additional terms into the classical equations of infinitesimal theory in mechanics which are useful for the numerical solution of problems involving different scales in the physical parameters. The discrete nodal values obtained with the FIC formulation and the finite element method (FEM) can be effectively used as the starting point for obtaining a more refined solution in zones where high gradients of the relevant variables occur using hierarchical or enriched FEM. Typical multiscale problems in mechanics which can be solved with the FIC method include convection–diffusion-reaction problems with high localized gradients, incompressible problems in solid and fluid mechanics, localization problems such as prediction of shear bands in solids and shock waves in compressible fluids, turbulence, etc. The paper presents an introduction of the treatment of multiscale problems using the FIC approach in conjunction with the FEM. Examples of application of the FIC/FEM formulation to the solution of simple multiscale convection–diffusion problems are given.     

Chain Vibration and Dynamic Stress in Three-Dimensional Multibody Tracked Vehicles

A three-dimensional computational finite element procedure for the vibration and dynamic stress analysis of the track link chains of off-road vehicles is presented in this paper. The numerical procedure developed in this investigation integrates classical constrained multibody dynamics methods with finite element capabilities. The nonlinear equations of motion of the three-dimensional tracked vehicle model in which the track link s are considered flexible bodies, are obtained using the floating frame of reference formulation. Three-dimensional contact force models are used to describe the interaction of the track chain links with the vehicle components and the ground. The dynamic equations of motion are first presented in terms of a coupled set of reference and elastic coordinates of the track links. Assuming that the structural flexibility of the track links does not have a significant effect on their overall rigid body motion as well as the vehicle dynamics, a partially linearized set of differential equations of motion of the track links is obtained. The equations associated with the rigid body motion are used to predict the generalized contact, inertia, and constraint forces associated with the deformation degrees of freedom of the track links. These forces are introduced to the track link flexibility equations which are used to calculate the deformations of the links resulting from the vehicle motion. A detailed three-dimensional finite element model of the track link is developed and utilized to predict the natural frequencies and mode shapes. The terms that represent the rigid body inertia, centrifugal and Coriolis forces in the equations of motion associated with the elastic coordinates of the track link are described in detail. A computational procedure for determining the generalized constraint forces associated with the elastic coordinates of the deformable chain links is presented. The finite element model is then used to determine the deformations of the track links resulting from the contact, inertia, and constraint forces. The results of the dynamic stress analysis of the track links are presented and the differences between these results and the results obtained by using the static stress analysis are demonstrated.     

A symmetric variational finite element-boundary integral equation coupling method

This paper is concerned with the development of a mixed variational principle for coupling finite element and boundary integral methods in interface problems, using the generalized Poisson's equation as a prototype situation. One of its primary objectives is to compare the performance of fully variational procedures with methods that use collocation for the treatment of boundary integral equations. A distinctive feature of the new variational principle is that the discretized algebraic equations for the coupled problem are automatically symmetric since they are all derived from a single functional. In addition, the condition that the flux remain continuous across interfaces is satisfied naturally. In discretizing the problem within inhomogeneous or loaded regions, domain finite elements are used to approximate the field variable. On the other hand, only boundary elements are used for regions where the medium is homogeneous and free of external agents. The corresponding integral equations are discretized both by fully variational and by collocation techniques. Results of numerical experiments indicate that the accuracy of the fully variational procedure is significantly greater than that of collocation for the complete interface problem, especially for complex disturbances, at little additional computational cost. This suggests that fully variational procedures may be preferable to collocation, not only in dealing with interface problems, but even for solving integral equations by themselves.     

Computer modelling in environmental geomechanics

This paper presents a general framework for the computational analysis of environmental geomechanics problems. It is based on heat and multiphase flow in deforming porous media where pollutant transport mechanisms can be added. The governing equations are derived and then discretised by means of the finite element method in space and finite differences in time. Appropriate solution methods are addressed. Examples given involve heat and mass transfer together with pollutant transport in deforming geomaterials and surface subsidence problems.     

Numerical Modeling of Degenerate Equations in Porous Media Flow

In this paper is introduced a new numerical formulation for solving degenerate nonlinear coupled convection dominated parabolic systems in problems of flow and transport in porous media by means of a mixed finite element and an operator splitting technique, which, in turn, is capable of simulating the flow of a distinct number of fluid phases in different porous media regions. This situation naturally occurs in practical applications, such as those in petroleum reservoir engineering and groundwater transport. To illustrate the modelling problem at hand, we consider a nonlinear three-phase porous media flow model in one- and two-space dimensions, which may lead to the existence of a simultaneous one-, two- and three-phase flow regions and therefore to a degenerate convection dominated parabolic system. Our numerical formulation can also be extended for the case of three space dimensions. As a consequence of the standard mixed finite element approach for this flow problem the resulting linear algebraic system is singular. By using an operator splitting combined with mixed finite element, and a decomposition of the domain into different flow regions, compatibility conditions are obtained to bypass the degeneracy in order to the degenerate convection dominated parabolic system of equations be numerically tractable without any mathematical trick to remove the singularity, i.e., no use of a parabolic regularization. Thus, by using this procedure, we were able to write the full nonlinear system in an appropriate way in order to obtain a nonsingular system for its numerical solution. The robustness of the proposed method is verified through a large set of high-resolution numerical experiments of nonlinear transport flow problems with degenerating diffusion conditions and by means of a numerical convergence study.     

Multidisciplinary Simulation of the Maneuvering of an Aircraft

A computational methodology for the simulation of the transient aeroelastic response of an unrestrained and flexible aircraft during high-G maneuvers is presented. The key components of this methodology are: (a) a three-field formulation for coupled fluid/structure interaction problems; (b) a second-order time-accurate and geometrically conservative flow solver for CFD computations on unstructured dynamic meshes; (c) a corotational finite element method for the solution of geometrically nonlinear and unrestrained structural dynamics problems; (d) a robust method for updating an unrestrained and unstructured moving fluid mesh; and (e) a second-order time-accurate staggered algorithm for time-integrating the coupled fluid/structure semi-discrete equations of motion. This computational methodology is illustrated with the simulation on a parallel processor of several three-dimensional high-G pullup maneuvers of the Langley Fighter in the transonic regime, using a detailed finite element aeroelastic model.     

Nonlinear dynamic analysis of curved beams

A computational procedure is presented for predicting the dynamic response of curved beams with geometric nonlinearities. A mixed formulation is used with the fundamental unknowns consisting of stress resultants, generalized displacements and velocity components. The governing semidiscrete finite element equations consist of a mixed system of algebraic and differential equations. The temporal integration of the differential equations is performed by using an explicit half-station central difference method. A procedure is outlined for lumping both the flexibilities and masses of the mixed model, thereby uncoupling all the equations of the system. The advantages of the proposed computational procedure over explicit methods used with the displacement formulation are discussed. The effectiveness and versatility of the proposed approach are demonstrated by means of numerical examples.     

A flow-condition-based interpolation finite element procedure for incompressible fluid flows

A new finite element procedure for the solution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is presented. In the Petrov–Galerkin formulation employed, the velocities are interpolated using the flow conditions over the elements and the pressure is interpolated to satisfy the inf–sup condition for incompressible analysis. Element control volumes are employed to satisfy local mass and momentum conservation (as in finite volume methods), which corresponds to using step functions as weight functions in the finite element method. An important achievement of the discretization scheme is that no artificial parameters are set in the scheme to reach stability for low and high Reynolds (and Péclet) number flows. The solutions of nontrivial test problems are presented to demonstrate the capability and potential of the scheme.     

An analysis of the time integration algorithms for the finite element solutions of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations based on a stabilised formulation

This work is concerned with the analysis of time integration procedures for the stabilised finite element formulation of unsteady incompressible fluid flows governed by the Navier–Stokes equations. The stabilisation technique is combined with several different implicit time integration procedures including both finite difference and finite element schemes. Particular attention is given to the generalised-α method and the linear discontinuous in time finite element scheme. The time integration schemes are first applied to two model problems, represented by a first order differential equation in time and the one dimensional advection–diffusion equation, and subjected to a detailed mathematical analysis based on the Fourier series expansion. In order to establish the accuracy and efficiency of the time integration schemes for the Navier–Stokes equations, a detailed computational study is performed of two standard numerical examples: unsteady flow around a cylinder and flow across a backward facing step. It is concluded that the semi-discrete generalised-α method provides a viable alternative to the more sophisticated and expensive space–time methods for simulations of unsteady flows of incompressible fluids governed by the Navier–Stokes equations.     

On the accuracy and efficiency of a finite element tensor product algorithm for fluid dynamics applications

A finite element numerical solution algorithm is derived for application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Through extension of the basic error extremization constraints offered using the method of weighted residuals, a selective dissipation mechanism is introduced to control phase error and/or non-linearly induced error. Using an implicit integration algorithm, the Jacobian of a Newton iteration procedure is replaced by a tensor matrix product construction for solution economy. Numerical results for multi-dimensional equations, modeling the substantial time derivative within the Navier-Stokes system, are utilized to assess solution accuracy, stability and error control.     

A fine grid finite element computation of two-dimensional high Reynolds number flows

A velocity—pressure integrated, mixed interpolation, Galerkin finite element computation of the Navier-Stokes equations using fine grids, is presented. In the method, the velocity variables were interpolated using complete quadratic shape functions: and the pressure was interpolated using linear shape functions defined on a triangular element, which is contained inside the quadratic element for velocity variables. Comprehensive computational results for a cavity flow for Reynolds number of 400 through 10,000 and a laminar backward-facing step flow for Reynolds number of 100 through 900 are presented in this paper. Many high Reynolds number flows involve convection dominated motion as well as diffusion dominated motion (such as the fluid motion inside the subtle pressure driven recirculation zones where the local Reynolds number may become vanishingly small) in the flow domain. The computational results for both of the fluid motions compared favorably with the high accuracy finite difference computational results and/or experimental data available.     

Parallel-vector computations for geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis

Existing procedures for nonlinear finite element analysis are reviewed. Common computational steps among existing methods are identified. Parallel-vector solution strategies for the generation and assembly of element matrices, solution of the resulting system of linear equations, calculations of the unbalanced loads, displacements and stresses are all incorporated into the Newton-Raphson (NR), modified Newton-Raphson (mNR), and BFGS methods. Furthermore, a mixed parallel-vector Choleski-Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (C-PCG) equation solver is also developed and incorporated into the piecewise linear procedure for nonlinear finite element analysis. Numerical results have indicated that the Newton-Raphson method is the most effective nonlinear procedure and the mixed C-PCG equation solver offers substantial computational advantages in a parallel-vector computer environment.     

Least square finite element solution of stagnation point flow

A detailed analysis of the least square finite element solution of nonlinear boundary value problems is presented with reference to a particular example of nonlinear coupled differential equations governing the flow of an incompressible viscous fluid in the vicinity of a forward stagnation point at a blunt body. The numerical solutions are presented for different cases. The results obtained by the least square finite element method are in very good agreement with the results available in the literature confirming the versatility and usefulness of the application of the method to nonlinear boundary value problems governing the fluid flow problems.     

Hybrid spectral-element-low-order methods for incompressible flows

In this article we present a new formulation for coupling spectral element discretizations to finite difference and finite element discretizations addressing flow problems in very complicated geometries. A general iterative relaxation procedure (Zanolli patching) is employed that enforcesC ¹ continuity along the patching interface between the two differently discretized subdomains. In fluid flow simulations of transitional and turbulent flows the high-order discretization (spectral element) is used in the outer part of the domain where the Reynolds number is effectively very high. Near rough wall boundaries (where the flow is effectively very viscous) the use of low-order discretizations provides sufficient accuracy and allows for efficient treatment of the complex geometry. An analysis of the patching procedure is presented for elliptic problems, and extensions to incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are implemented using an efficient high-order splitting scheme. Several examples are given for elliptic and flow model problems and performance is measured on both serial and parallel processors.     

A mixed variational formulation for shape optimization of solids with contact conditions

This paper is concerned with the development of a mixed variational formulation and computational procedure for the shape optimization problem of linear elastic solids in possible contact with a rigid foundation. The objective is to minimize the maximum value of the von Mises equivalent stress in a body (non-differentiable objective function), subject to a constraint on its volume and bound constraints on the design. For design purposes, the contact boundary is considered fixed.A finite element model that is appropriate for the mixed formulation is utilized in the discretization of the state and adjoint state equations. An elliptical mesh generator was used to generate the finite element mesh at each new design. The computational model is tested in several example problems.     

A hybrid method for unsteady inviscid fluid flow

We show how a stable and accurate hybrid procedure for fluid flow can be constructed. Two separate solvers, one using high order finite difference methods and another using the node-centered unstructured finite volume method are coupled in a truly stable way. The two flow solvers run independently and receive and send information from each other by using a third coupling code. Exact solutions to the Euler equations are used to verify the accuracy and stability of the new computational procedure. We also demonstrate the capability of the new procedure in a calculation of the flow in and around a model of a coral.     

On the application of an element-by-element lanczos solver to large offshore structural engineering problems

Iterative methods for solving large sets of linear equations have been used as an alternative to direct methods of solution since the early beginning of numerical analysis. The conjugate gradient method (CCM), one of the most widely used, seeks a solution that minimizes the potential energy of the finite element assemblage. Recently, the use of Lanczos algorithm for the solution of large sets of linear equations has been re-examined. Lanczos biorthogonalization procedure is an oblique projection method that provides a solution approximation whose residual is orthogonal to a Krylov subspace. It has been shown that Lanczos and CGM share several properties but the former has the advantage of not being necessary to compute the approximated solution at each iteration. Jacobi preconditioning can also be employed in order to accelerate convergence. The Lanczos procedure was implemented using an element-by-element (EBE) scheme. The applications spread over typical offshore engineering problems encompassing regular and irregular meshes. These problems are normally ill-conditioned when compared with continuum problems. For all the analyses addressed the element-by-element Lanczos procedures presented outstanding computational efficiency.     

Implicit-explicit schemes for nonlinear consolidation

A general analytical procedure capable of performing linear and nonlinear consolidation analysis of saturated porous media is proposed. A brief review of the coupled field equations is included and the constitutive assumptions are stated explicitly. Time integration of the resulting nonlinear semidiscrete finite element equations is performed by using an implicit/explicit predictor/multicorrector scheme developed by Hughes and co-workers. It is shown that the algorithm can be simply and concisely implemented. The technique allows for a convenient selection of implicit and explicit elements, and for a convenient implicit-explicit split of the various operators appearing in the equations. The procedure proves to be extremely effective in dealing with consolidation problems. Numerical results which demonstrate the versatility and accuracy of the proposed procedures are presented.