An adaptive mesh refinement of quadrilateral finite element meshes based upon a posteriori error estimation of quantities of interest: linear static response

A posteriori error estimation in finite element analysis serves as an important guide to the meshing tool in an adaptive refinement process. However, the traditional posteriori error estimates, which are often defined in the energy or energy-type norms over the entire domain, provide users insufficient information regarding the accuracy of specific quantities in the solution. This paper describes an adaptive quadrilateral refinement process with a goal-oriented error estimation, in which a posteriori error is estimated with respect to the specified quantity of interest. A highlight of this paper is the demonstration of tools described in the paper used in a practical industrial environment. The performance of this process is demonstrated on several practical problems where the comparison is with the adaptive process based on the traditional error estimation.     

Adaptive mesh refinement using piecewise-linear shape functions based on the blending function method

Use of quadrilateral elements for finite element mesh refinement can lead either to so-called irregular meshes or the necessity of adjustments between finer and coarser parts of the mesh necessary. In the case of irregular meshes, constraints have to be introduced in order to maintain continuity of the displacements. Introduction of finite elements based on blending function interpolation shape functions using piecewise boundary interpolation avoids these problems. This paper introduces an adaptive refinement procedure for these types of elements. The refinement is anh-method. Error estimation is performed using the Zienkiewicz-Zhu method. The refinement is controlled by a switching function representation. The method is applied to the plane stress problem. Numerical examples are given to show the efficiency of the methodology.     

Automatic mesh generation and modification techniques for mixed quadrilateral and hexahedral element meshes of non-manifold models

A typical geometric model usually consists of both solid sections and thin-walled sections. Through using a suitable dimensional reduction algorithm, the model can be reduced to a non-manifold model consisting of solid portions and two-dimensional portions which represent the mid-surfaces of the thin-walled sections. It is desirable to mesh the solid entities using three-dimensional elements and the surface entities using two-dimensional elements. This paper proposes a robust scheme to automatically generate such a mesh of mixed two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements. It also ensures that the mesh is conforming at the interface of the non-manifold geometries. Different classes of problems are identified and their corresponding solutions are presented.     

Intelligent finite element mesh generation

A knowledge-based and automatic finite element mesh generator (INTELMESH) for two-dimensional linear elasticity problems is presented. Unlike other approaches, the proposed technique incorporates the information about the object geometry as well as the boundary and loading conditions to generate an a priori finite element mesh which is more refined around the critical regions of the problem domain. INTELMESH uses a blackboard architecture expert system and the new concept of substracting to locate the critical regions in the domain and to assign priority and mesh size to them. This involves the decomposition of the original structure into substructures (or primitives) for which an initial and approximate analysis can be performed by using analytical solutions and heuristics. It then uses the concept of wave propagation to generate graded nodes in the whole domain with proper density distribution. INTELMESH is fully automatic and allows the user to define the problem domain with minimum amount of input such as object geometry and boundary and loading conditions. Once nodes have been generated for the entire domain, they are automatically connected to form well-shaped triangular elements ensuring the Delaunay property. Several examples are presented and discussed. When incorporated into and compared with the traditional approach to the adaptive finite element analysis, it is expected that the proposed approach, which starts the process with near optimal initial meshes, will be more accurate and efficient.     

Anisotropic mesh adaptation for finite element solution of Anisotropic Porous Medium Equation

Anisotropic Porous Medium Equation (APME) is developed as an extension of the Porous Medium Equation (PME) for anisotropic porous media. A special analytical solution is derived for APME for time-independent diffusion. Anisotropic mesh adaptation for linear finite element solution of APME is discussed and numerical results for two dimensional examples are presented. The solution errors using anisotropic adaptive meshes show second order convergence.     

An adaptive method for the determination of the order of element for acquiring the desired accuracy in 3D elastostatic FEM analysis

An adaptive method for the determination of the order of element (or element order) was developed for the finite element analysis of 3D elastostatic problems. Here the order of element means the order of polynomial function, which interpolates the displacement distribution in the element. This method was based on acquiring the desired accuracy for each finite element. From the numerical experiments, the relationship ξ=k(1/p)^β was deduced, where ξ is the error of the result of the finite element analysis relative to the exact value, p is the order of element, and k and β are constants. Applying this relationship to the two results of computations with different orders of element, the order of element for the third computation was deduced. A computer program using this adaptive determination method for the order of element was developed and applied to several 3D elastostatic problems of various shapes. The usefulness of the method was illustrated by these application results.     

A posteriori error estimates of finite element method for the time-dependent Darcy problem in an axisymmetric domain

We consider the time dependent Darcy problem in a three-dimensional axisymmetric domain and, by writing the Fourier expansion of its solution with respect to the angular variable, we observe that each Fourier coefficient satisfies a system of equations on the meridian domain. We propose a discretization of these equations in the case of general solution. This discretization relies on a backward Euler’s scheme for the time variable and finite elements for the space variables. We prove a posteriori error estimates that allow for an efficient adaptivity strategy both for the time steps and the meshes. Computations for an example with a known solution are presented which support the a posteriori error estimate.     

An object-oriented framework for finite element analysis based on a compact topological data structure

This paper describes an ongoing work in the development of a finite element analysis system, called TopFEM, based on the compact topological data structure, TopS [1], [2]. This new framework was written to take advantage of the topological data structure together with object-oriented programming concepts to handle a variety of finite element problems, spanning from fracture mechanics to topology optimization, in an efficient, but generic fashion. The class organization of the TopFEM system is described and discussed within the context of other frameworks in the literature that share similar ideas, such as GetFEM++, deal.II, FEMOOP and OpenSees. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the capabilities of TopS attached to a finite element framework in the context of fracture mechanics and to establish a benchmark with other implementations that do not make use of a topological data structure.     

Skeleton-based computational method for the generation of a 3D finite element mesh sizing function

This paper focuses on the generation of a three-dimensional (3D) mesh sizing function for geometry-adaptive finite element (FE) meshing. The mesh size at a point in the domain of a solid depends on the geometric complexity of the solid. This paper proposes a set of tools that are sufficient to measure the geometric complexity of a solid. Discrete skeletons of the input solid and its surfaces are generated, which are used as tools to measure the proximity between geometric entities and feature size. The discrete skeleton and other tools, which are used to measure the geometric complexity, generate source points that determine the size and local sizing function at certain points in the domain of the solid. An octree lattice is used to store the sizing function as it reduces the meshing time. The size at every lattice-node is calculated by interpolating the size of the source points. The algorithm has been tested on many industrial models, and it can be extended to consider other non-geometric factors that influence the mesh size, such as physics, boundary conditions, etc.Sandia National Laboratory is a multiprogram laboratory operated by the Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.     

The verification of the quantities of interest based on energy norm of solutions by node-based smoothed finite element method

Verification of the quantities of interest computed with the finite element method (FEM) requires an upper bound on the strain energy, which is half of the energy norm of displacement solutions. Recently, a modified finite element method with strain smoothing, the node-based smoothed finite element method (NS-FEM), has been proposed to solve solid mechanics problems. It has been found in some cases that the energy norm formed by the smoothed strain of NS-FEM solutions bounds the energy norm of exact displacements from above. We analyze the bounding property of this method, give three kind of energy norms of solutions computed by FEM and NS-FEM, and extend them to the computation of an upper bound and a lower bound on the linear functional of displacements. By examining the bounding property of NS-FEM with different energy norms using some linear elastic problems, the advantages of NS-FEM over the traditional error estimate based methods is observed.     

The creation of a high‐fidelity finite element model of the kidney for use in trauma research

A detailed finite element model of the human kidney for trauma research has been created directly from the National Library of Medicine Visible Human Female (VHF) Project data set. An image segmentation and organ reconstruction software package has been developed and employed to transform the 2D VHF images into a 3D polygonal representation. Non‐uniform rational B‐spline (NURBS) surfaces were then mapped to the polygonal surfaces, and were finally utilized to create a robust 3D hexahedral finite element mesh within a commercially available meshing software. The model employs a combined viscoelastic and hyperelastic material model to successfully simulate the behaviour of biological soft tissues. The finite element model was then validated for use in biomechanical research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.