Polyhedral elements by means of node/edge‐based smoothed finite element method

The node‐based or edge‐based smoothed finite element method is extended to develop polyhedral elements that are allowed to have an arbitrary number of nodes or faces, and so retain a good geometric adaptability. The strain smoothing technique and implicit shape functions based on the linear point interpolation make the element formulation simple and straightforward. The resulting polyhedral elements are free from the excessive zero‐energy modes and yield a robust solution very much insensitive to mesh distortion. Several numerical examples within the framework of linear elasticity demonstrate the accuracy and convergence behavior. The smoothed finite element method‐based polyhedral elements in general yield solutions of better accuracy and faster convergence rate than those of the conventional finite element methods. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dispersion error reduction for acoustic problems using the edge‐based smoothed finite element method (ES‐FEM)

The paper reports a detailed analysis on the numerical dispersion error in solving 2D acoustic problems governed by the Helmholtz equation using the edge‐based smoothed finite element method (ES‐FEM), in comparison with the standard FEM. It is found that the dispersion error of the standard FEM for solving acoustic problems is essentially caused by the ‘overly stiff’ feature of the discrete model. In such an ‘overly stiff’ FEM model, the wave propagates with an artificially higher ‘numerical’ speed, and hence the numerical wave‐number becomes significantly smaller than the actual exact one. Owing to the proper softening effects provided naturally by the edge‐based gradient smoothing operations, the ES‐FEM model, however, behaves much softer than the standard FEM model, leading to the so‐called very ‘close‐to‐exact’ stiffness. Therefore the ES‐FEM can naturally and effectively reduce the dispersion error in the numerical solution in solving acoustic problems. Results of both theoretical and numerical studies will support these important findings. It is shown clearly that the ES‐FEM suits ideally well for solving acoustic problems governed by the Helmholtz equations, because of the crucial effectiveness in reducing the dispersion error in the discrete numerical model. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

F‐bar aided edge‐based smoothed finite element method using tetrahedral elements for finite deformation analysisof nearly incompressible solids

A new smoothed finite element method (S‐FEM) with tetrahedral elements for finite strain analysis of nearly incompressible solids is proposed. The proposed method is basically a combination of the F‐bar method and edge‐based S‐FEM with tetrahedral elements (ES‐FEM‐T4) and is named ‘F‐barES‐FEM‐T4’. F‐barES‐FEM‐T4 inherits the accuracy and shear locking‐free property of ES‐FEM‐T4. At the same time, it also inherits the volumetric locking‐free property of the F‐bar method. The isovolumetric part of the deformation gradient ( F ^iso) is derived from the F of ES‐FEM‐T4, whereas the volumetric part ( F ^vol) is derived from the cyclic smoothing of J(=det( F )) between elements and nodes. Some demonstration analyses confirm that F‐barES‐FEM‐T4 with a sufficient number of cyclic smoothings suppresses the pressure oscillation in nearly incompressible materials successfully with no increase in DOF. Moreover, they reveal that our method is capable of relaxing the corner locking issue arising at the corner in the cylinder barreling analysis. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the essence and the evaluation of the shape functions for the smoothed finite element method (SFEM)

This paper is written in response to the recently published paper (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 76 :1285–1295) at IJNME entitled ‘On the smoothed finite element method’ (SFEM) by Zhang HH, Liu SJ, Li LX. In this paper we

• (1) repeat briefly the important essence of the original SFEM presented in (Comp. Mech. 2007; 39 : 859–877; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 71 :902–930; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 74 :175–208; Finite Elem. Anal. Des. 2007; 43 :847–860; J. Sound Vib. 2007; 301 :803–820), and
• (2) examine further issues in the evaluation of the shape functions used in the SFEM.

It will be shown that the ‘SFEM’ presented in paper (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 76 :1285–1295) is not at all our original SFEM presented in (Comp. Mech. 2007; 39 :859–877; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 71 :902–930; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 74 :175–208; Finite Elem. Anal. Des. 2007; 43 :847–860; J. Sound Vib. 2007; 301 :803–820). Therefore, all these ‘Theorems’, ‘Corollaries’ and ‘Remarks’ presented in paper (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 76 :1285–1295) have nothing to do with our original SFEM. The properties of the original SFEM stand as they were presented in our original papers (Comp. Mech. 2007; 39 :859–877; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 71 :902–930; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 74 :175–208; Finite Elem. Anal. Des. 2007; 43 :847–860; J. Sound Vib. 2007; 301 :803–820). Finally, we brief on our advancements made far beyond our original SFEM and our visions on future numerical methods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A locking‐free selective smoothed finite element method using tetrahedral and triangular elements with adaptive mesh rezoning for large deformation problems

A novel finite element (FE) formulation with adaptive mesh rezoning for large deformation problems is proposed. The proposed method takes the advantage of the selective smoothed FE method (S‐FEM), which has been recently developed as a locking‐free FE formulation with strain smoothing technique. We adopt the selective face‐based smoothed/node‐based smoothed FEM (FS/NS‐FEM‐T4) and edge‐based smoothed/node‐based smoothed FEM (ES/NS‐FEM‐T3) basically but modify them partly so that our method can handle any kind of material constitutive models other than elastic models. We also present an adaptive mesh rezoning method specialized for our S‐FEM formulation with material constitutive models in total form. Because of the modification of the selective S‐FEMs and specialization of adaptive mesh rezoning, our method is locking‐free for severely large deformation problems even with the use of tetrahedral and triangular meshes. The formulation details for static implicit analysis and several examples of analysis of the proposed method are presented in this paper to demonstrate its efficiency. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a 4‐node hybrid stress tetrahedral element using a node‐based smoothed finite element method

In this paper, a new 4‐node hybrid stress element is proposed using a node‐based smoothing technique of tetrahedral mesh. The conditions for hybrid stress field required are summarized, and the field should be continuous for better performance of a constant‐strain tetrahedral element. Nodal stress is approximated by the node‐based smoothing technique, and the stress field is interpolated with standard shape functions. This stress field is linear within each element and continuous across elements. The stress field is expressed by nodal displacements and no additional variables. The element stiffness matrix is calculated using the Hellinger‐Reissner functional, which guarantees the strain field from displacement field to be equal to that from the stress field in a weak sense. The performance of the proposed element is verified by through several numerical examples.     

A novel hybrid FS‐FEM/SEA for the analysis of vibro‐acoustic problems

Predicting the frequency response of a complex vibro‐acoustic system becomes extremely difficult in the mid‐frequency regime. In this work, a novel hybrid face‐based smoothed finite element method/statistical energy analysis (FS‐FEM/SEA) method is proposed, aiming to further improve the accuracy of ‘mid‐frequency’ predictions. According to this approach, the whole vibro‐acoustic system is divided into a combination of a plate subsystem with statistical behaviour and an acoustic cavity subsystem with deterministic behaviour. The plate subsystem is treated using the recently developed FS‐FEM, and the cavity subsystem is dealt with using the SEA. These two different types of subsystems can be coupled and interacted through the so‐called diffuse field reciprocity relation. The ensemble average response of the system is calculated, and the uncertainty is confined and treated in the SEA subsystems. The use of FS‐FEM ‘softens’ the well‐known ‘overly stiff’ behaviour in the standard FEM and reduces the inherent numerical dispersion error. The proposed FS‐FEM/SEA approach is verified and its features are examined by various numerical examples. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Edge‐based finite element techniques for non‐linear solid mechanics problems

Edge‐based data structures are used to improve computational efficiency of inexact Newton methods for solving finite element non‐linear solid mechanics problems on unstructured meshes. Edge‐based data structures are employed to store the stiffness matrix coefficients and to compute sparse matrix–vector products needed in the inner iterative driver of the inexact Newton method. Numerical experiments on three‐dimensional plasticity problems have shown that memory and computer time are reduced, respectively, by factors of 4 and 6, compared with solutions using element‐by‐element storage and matrix–vector products. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theoretical aspects of the smoothed finite element method (SFEM)

This paper examines the theoretical bases for the smoothed finite element method (SFEM), which was formulated by incorporating cell‐wise strain smoothing operation into standard compatible finite element method (FEM). The weak form of SFEM can be derived from the Hu–Washizu three‐field variational principle. For elastic problems, it is proved that 1D linear element and 2D linear triangle element in SFEM are identical to their counterparts in FEM, while 2D bilinear quadrilateral elements in SFEM are different from that of FEM: when the number of smoothing cells (SCs) of the elements equals 1, the SFEM solution is proved to be ‘variationally consistent’ and has the same properties with those of FEM using reduced integration; when SC approaches infinity, the SFEM solution will approach the solution of the standard displacement compatible FEM model; when SC is a finite number larger than 1, the SFEM solutions are not ‘variationally consistent’ but ‘energy consistent’, and will change monotonously from the solution of SFEM (SC = 1) to that of SFEM (SC → ∞). It is suggested that there exists an optimal number of SC such that the SFEM solution is closest to the exact solution. The properties of SFEM are confirmed by numerical examples. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An edge‐based smoothed finite element method for 3D analysis of solid mechanics problems

The edge‐based smoothed finite element method (ES‐FEM) was proposed recently in Liu, Nguyen‐Thoi, and Lam to improve the accuracy of the FEM for 2D problems. This method belongs to the wider family of the smoothed FEM for which smoothing cells are defined to perform the numerical integration over the domain. Later, the face‐based smoothed FEM (FS‐FEM) was proposed to generalize the ES‐FEM to 3D problems. According to this method, the smoothing cells are centered along the faces of the tetrahedrons of the mesh. In the present paper, an alternative method for the extension of the ES‐FEM to 3D is investigated. This method is based on an underlying mesh composed of tetrahedrons, and the approximation of the field variables is associated with the tetrahedral elements; however, in contrast to the FS‐FEM, the smoothing cells of the proposed ES‐FEM are centered along the edges of the tetrahedrons of the mesh. From selected numerical benchmark problems, it is observed that the ES‐FEM is characterized by a higher accuracy and improved computational efficiency as compared with linear tetrahedral elements and to the FS‐FEM for a given number of degrees of freedom. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Computation of limit and shakedown loads using a node‐based smoothed finite element method

This paper presents a novel numerical procedure for computing limit and shakedown loads of structures using a node‐based smoothed FEM in combination with a primal–dual algorithm. An associated primal–dual form based on the von Mises yield criterion is adopted. The primal‐dual algorithm together with a Newton‐like iteration are then used to solve this associated primal–dual form to determine simultaneously both approximate upper and quasi‐lower bounds of the plastic collapse limit and the shakedown limit. The present formulation uses only linear approximations and its implementation into finite element programs is quite simple. Several numerical examples are given to show the reliability, accuracy, and generality of the present formulation compared with other available methods. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of functionally graded plates using an edge-based smoothed finite element method

An edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) with stabilized discrete shear gap (DSG) technique using triangular meshes (ES-DSG) was recently proposed to enhance the accuracy of the existing FEM with the DSG for analysis of isotropic Reissner/Mindlin plates. In this paper, the ES-DSG is further formulated for static, free vibration and buckling analyses of functionally graded material (FGM) plates. The thermal and mechanical properties of FGM plates are assumed to vary across the thickness of the plate by a simple power rule of the volume fractions of the constituents. In the ES-DSG, the stiffness matrices are obtained by using the strain smoothing technique over the smoothing domains associated with the edges of the elements. The present formulation uses only linear approximations and its implementation into finite element programs is quite simple. Several numerical examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the present formulation for FGM plates.     

A novel singular node‐based smoothed finite element method (NS‐FEM) for upper bound solutions of fracture problems

It is well known that the lower bound to exact solutions in linear fracture problems can be easily obtained by the displacement compatible finite element method (FEM) together with the singular crack tip elements. It is, however, much more difficult to obtain the upper bound solutions for these problems. This paper aims to formulate a novel singular node‐based smoothed finite element method (NS‐FEM) to obtain the upper bound solutions for fracture problems. In the present singular NS‐FEM, the calculation of the system stiffness matrix is performed using the strain smoothing technique over the smoothing domains (SDs) associated with nodes, which leads to the line integrations using only the shape function values along the boundaries of the SDs. A five‐node singular crack tip element is used within the framework of NS‐FEM to construct singular shape functions via direct point interpolation with proper order of fractional basis. The mix‐mode stress intensity factors are evaluated using the domain forms of the interaction integrals. The upper bound solutions of the present singular NS‐FEM are demonstrated via benchmark examples for a wide range of material combinations and boundary conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new computational approach to contact mechanics using variable‐node finite elements

In this paper, a new computational strategy for two‐dimensional contact problems is developed with the aid of variable‐node finite elements within the range of infinitesimal deformations. The variable‐node elements, which are among MLS (moving least square)‐based finite elements, enable us to transform node‐to‐surface contact problems into node‐to‐node contact problems. This contact formulation with variable‐node elements leads to an accurate and effective solution procedure, needless to mention that the contact patch test is passed without any additional treatment. Through several numerical examples, we demonstrate its simplicity and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extended finite element method coupled with face‐based strain smoothing technique for three‐dimensional fracture problems

In this work, the extended finite element method (XFEM) is for the first time coupled with face‐based strain‐smoothing technique to solve three‐dimensional fracture problems. This proposed method, which is called face‐based smoothed XFEM here, is expected to combine both the advantages of XFEM and strain‐smoothing technique. In XFEM, arbitrary crack geometry can be modeled and crack advance can be simulated without remeshing. Strain‐smoothing technique can eliminate the integration of singular term over the volume around the crack front, thanks to the transformation of volume integration into area integration. Special smoothing scheme is implemented in the crack front smoothing domain. Three examples are presented to test the accuracy, efficiency, and convergence rate of the face‐based smoothed XFEM. From the results, it is clear that smoothing technique can improve the performance of XFEM for three‐dimensional fracture problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 3‐node C0 triangular element for the modified couple stress theory based on the smoothed finite element method

In this paper, a 3‐node C⁰ triangular element for the modified couple stress theory is proposed. Unlike the classical continuum theory, the second‐order derivative of displacement is included in the weak form of the equilibrium equations. Thus, the first‐order derivative of displacement, such as the rotation, should be approximated by a continuous function. In the proposed element, the derivative of the displacement is defined at a node using the node‐based smoothed finite element method. The derivative fields, continuous between elements and linear in an element, are approximated with the shape functions in element. Both the displacement field and the derivative field of displacement are expressed in terms of the displacement degree of freedom only. The element stiffness matrix is calculated using the newly defined derivative field. The performance of the proposed element is evaluated through various numerical examples.     

On the approximation in the smoothed finite element method (SFEM)

This letter aims at resolving the issues raised in the recent short communication (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 76 (8):1285–1295. DOI: 10.1002/nme.2460 ) and answered by (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2009; DOI: 10.1002/nme.2587 ) by proposing a systematic approximation scheme based on non‐mapped shape functions, which both allows to fully exploit the unique advantages of the smoothed finite element method (SFEM) (Comput. Mech. 2007; 39 (6):859–877. DOI: 10.1007/s00466‐006‐0075‐4 ; Commun. Numer. Meth. Engng 2009; 25 (1):19–34. DOI: 10.1002/cnm.1098 ; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2007; 71 (8):902–930; Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engng 2008; 198 (2):165–177. DOI: 10.1016/j.cma.2008.05.029 ; Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engng 2007; submitted; Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 74 (2):175–208. DOI: 10.1002/nme.2146 ; Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engng 2008; 197 (13–16):1184–1203. DOI: 10.1016/j.cma.2007.10.008 ) and resolve the existence, linearity and positivity deficiencies pointed out in (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2008; 76 (8):1285–1295). We show that Wachspress interpolants (A Rational Basis for Function Approximation. Academic Press, Inc.: New York, 1975) computed in the physical coordinate system are very well suited to the SFEM, especially when elements are heavily distorted (obtuse interior angles). The proposed approximation leads to results that are almost identical to those of the SFEM initially proposed in (Comput. Mech. 2007; 39 (6):859–877. DOI: 10.1007/s00466‐006‐0075‐4 ). These results suggest that the proposed approximation scheme forms a strong and rigorous basis for the construction of SFEMs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The hp‐d‐adaptive finite cell method for geometrically nonlinear problems of solid mechanics

The finite cell method (FCM) combines the fictitious domain approach with the p‐version of the finite element method and adaptive integration. For problems of linear elasticity, it offers high convergence rates and simple mesh generation, irrespective of the geometric complexity involved. This article presents the integration of the FCM into the framework of nonlinear finite element technology. However, the penalty parameter of the fictitious domain is restricted to a few orders of magnitude in order to maintain local uniqueness of the deformation map. As a consequence of the weak penalization, nonlinear strain measures provoke excessive stress oscillations in the cells cut by geometric boundaries, leading to a low algebraic rate of convergence. Therefore, the FCM approach is complemented by a local overlay of linear hierarchical basis functions in the sense of the hp‐d method, which synergetically uses the h‐adaptivity of the integration scheme. Numerical experiments show that the hp‐d overlay effectively reduces oscillations and permits stronger penalization of the fictitious domain by stabilizing the deformation map. The hp‐d‐adaptive FCM is thus able to restore high convergence rates for the geometrically nonlinear case, while preserving the easy meshing property of the original FCM. Accuracy and performance of the present scheme are demonstrated by several benchmark problems in one, two, and three dimensions and the nonlinear simulation of a complex foam sample. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.