Arbitrary-level hanging nodes and automatic adaptivity in the hp-FEM

In this paper we present a new automatic adaptivity algorithm for the hp-FEM which is based on arbitrary-level hanging nodes and local element projections. The method is very simple to implement compared to other existing hp-adaptive strategies, while its performance is comparable or superior. This is demonstrated on several numerical examples which include the L-shape domain problem, a problem with internal layer, and the Girkmann problem of linear elasticity. With appropriate simplifications, the proposed technique can be applied to standard lower-order and spectral finite element methods.     

HP90: A general and flexible Fortran 90 hp-FE code

A general 2D-hp-adaptive Finite Element (FE) implementation in Fortran 90 is described. The implementation is based on an abstract data structure, which allows to incorporate the full hp-adaptivity of triangular and quadrilateral finite elements. The h-refinement strategies are based on h2-refinement of quadrilaterals and h4-refinement of triangles. For p-refinement we allow the approximation order to vary within any element. The mesh refinement algorithms are restricted to 1-irregular meshes. Anisotropic and geometric refinement of quadrilateral meshes is made possible by additionally allowing double constrained nodes in rectangles. The capabilities of this hp-adaptive FE package are demonstrated on various test problems. Received: 18 December 1997 / Accepted: 17 April 1998     

A Fully Automatic hp-Adaptivity

We present an algorithm, and a 2D implementation for a fully automatic hp-adaptive strategy for elliptic problems. Given a mesh, the next, optimally refined mesh, is determined by maximizing the rate of decrease of the hp-interpolation error for a reference solution. Numerical results confirm optimal, exponential convergence rates predicted by the theory of hp methods.     

Stabilised hp-Finite Element Approximation of Partial Differential Equations with Nonnegative Characteristic Form

This paper is devoted to the a priori error analysis of the hp-version of a streamline-diffusion finite element method for partial differential equations with nonnegative characteristic form. This class of equations includes second-order elliptic and parabolic problems, first-order hyperbolic problems and second-order problems of mixed elliptic-parabolic-hyperbolic type. We derive error bounds which are simultaneously optimal in both the mesh size h and the spectral order p. Numerical examples are presented to confirm the theoretical results. Received October 28, 1999; revised May 26, 2000     

A goal-oriented hp-adaptive finite element approach to radar scattering problems

The paper presents application of an hp-adaptive finite element method for scattering of electromagnetic waves. The main objective of the numerical analysis is to determine the characteristics of the scattered waves indicating the power being scattered at a given direction––i.e. the radar cross-section (RCS). This is achieved considering the scattered far-field which defines RCS and which is expressed as a linear functional of the solution. Techniques of error estimation for the far-field are considered and an h-adaptive strategy leading to the fast reduction of the error of the far-field is presented. The simulations are performed with a three-dimensional version of an hp-adaptive finite element method for electromagnetics based on the hexahedral edge elements combined with infinite elements for modeling the unbounded space surrounding the scattering object.     

Two-level methods for the single layer potential in ℝ3

We consider weakly singular integral equations of the first kind on open surface pieces Γ in ℝ³. To obtain approximate solutions we use theh-version Galerkin boundary element method. Furthermore we introduce two-level additive Schwarz operators for non-overlapping domain decompositions of Γ and we estimate the conditions numbers of these operators with respect to the mesh size. Based on these operators we derive an a posteriori error estimate for the difference between the exact solution and the Galerkin solution. The estimate also involves the error which comes from an approximate solution of the Galerkin equations. For uniform meshes and under the assumption of a saturation condition we show reliability and efficiency of our estimate. Based on this estimate we introduce an adaptive multilevel algorithm with easily computable local error indicators which allows direction control of the local refinements. The theoretical results are illustrated by numerical examples for plane and curved surfaces. Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant Ste 238/25-9.     

A review of some a posteriori error estimates for adaptive finite element methods

Recently, the adaptive finite element methods have gained a very important position among numerical procedures for solving ordinary as well as partial differential equations arising from various technical applications. While the classical a posteriori error estimates are oriented to the use in h-methods the contemporary higher order hp-methods usually require new approaches in a posteriori error estimation.     

A note on the design of hp-adaptive finite element methods for elliptic partial differential equations

We introduce an hp-adaptive finite element algorithm based on a combination of reliable and efficient residual error indicators and a new hp-extension control technique which assesses the local regularity of the underlying analytical solution on the basis of its local Legendre series expansion. Numerical experiments confirm the robustness and reliability of the proposed algorithm.     

hp-Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods with Least-Squares Stabilization

We consider a family of hp-version discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods with least-squares stabilization for symmetric systems of first-order partial differential equations. The family includes the classical discontinuous Galerkin finite element method, with and without streamline-diffusion stabilization, as well as the discontinuous version of the Galerkin least-squares finite element method. An hp-optimal error bound is derived in the associated DG-norm. If the solution of the problem is elementwise analytic, an exponential rate of convergence under p-refinement is proved. We perform numerical experiments both to illustrate the theoretical results and to compare the various methods within the family.     

Two-Grid hp-Version Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods for Second-Order Quasilinear Elliptic PDEs

In this article we propose a class of so-called two-grid hp-version discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods for the numerical solution of a second-order quasilinear elliptic boundary value problem of monotone type. The key idea in this setting is to first discretise the underlying nonlinear problem on a coarse finite element space $V({{\mathcal {T}_{H}}},\boldsymbol {P})$ . The resulting ‘coarse’ numerical solution is then exploited to provide the necessary data needed to linearise the underlying discretisation on the finer space $V({{\mathcal {T}_{h}}},\boldsymbol {p})$ ; thereby, only a linear system of equations is solved on the richer space $V({{\mathcal {T}_{h}}},\boldsymbol {p})$ . In this article both the a priori and a posteriori error analysis of the two-grid hp-version discontinuous Galerkin finite element method is developed. Moreover, we propose and implement an hp-adaptive two-grid algorithm, which is capable of designing both the coarse and fine finite element spaces $V({{\mathcal {T}_{H}}},\boldsymbol {P})$ and $V({{\mathcal {T}_{h}}},\boldsymbol {p})$ , respectively, in an automatic fashion. Numerical experiments are presented for both two- and three-dimensional problems; in each case, we demonstrate that the CPU time required to compute the numerical solution to a given accuracy is typically less when the two-grid approach is exploited, when compared to the standard discontinuous Galerkin method.     

Galerkin methods and L2-error estimates for hyperbolic integro-differential equations

In this paper we shall study Galerkin approximations to the solution of linear second-order hyperbolic integro-differential equations. The continuous and Crank-Nicolson discrete time Galerkin procedures will be defined and optimal error estimates for these procedures are demonstrated by using a “non-classical” elliptic projection.     

Two-Level Additive Schwarz Preconditioners for the h-p Version of the Galerkin Boundary Element Method for 2-d Problems

We study two-level additive Schwarz preconditioners for the h-p version of the Galerkin boundary element method when used to solve hypersingular integral equations of the first kind, which arise from the Neumann problems for the Laplacian in two dimensions. Overlapping and non-overlapping methods are considered. We prove that the non-overlapping preconditioner yields a system of equations having a condition number bounded by   where H _i is the length of the i-th subdomain, h _i is the maximum length of the elements in this subdomain, and p is the maximum polynomial degree used. For the overlapping method, we prove that the condition number is bounded by   where δ is the size of the overlap and H=max _i H _i . We also discuss the use of the non-overlapping method when the mesh is geometrically graded. The condition number in that case is bounded by clog² M, where M is the degrees of freedom. Received October 27, 2000, revised March 26, 2001     

An Efficient Direct Solver for the Boundary Concentrated FEM in 2D

The boundary concentrated FEM, a variant of the hp-version of the finite element method, is proposed for the numerical treatment of elliptic boundary value problems. It is particularly suited for equations with smooth coefficients and non-smooth boundary conditions. In the two-dimensional case it is shown that the Cholesky factorization of the resulting stiffness matrix requires O(Nlog⁴ N) units of storage and can be computed with O(Nlog⁸ N) work, where N denotes the problem size. Numerical results confirm theoretical estimates. Received October 4, 2001; revised August 19, 2002 Published online: October 24, 2002     

Multigrid for Discrete Differential Forms on Sparse Grids

Discrete differential forms are a generalization of the common H¹()-conforming Lagrangian elements. For the latter, Galerkin schemes based on sparse grids are well known, and so are fast iterative multilevel solvers for the discrete Galerkin equations. We extend both the sparse grid idea and the design of multilevel methods to arbitrary discrete differential forms. The focus of this presentation will be on issues of efficient implementation and numerical studies of convergence of multigrid solvers.     

On the Numerical Solution of Some Semilinear Elliptic Problems – II

In the earlier paper [6], a Galerkin method was proposed and analyzed for the numerical solution of a Dirichlet problem for a semi-linear elliptic boundary value problem of the form –U=F(·,U). This was converted to a problem on a standard domain and then converted to an equivalent integral equation. Galerkins method was used to solve the integral equation, with the eigenfunctions of the Laplacian operator on the standard domain D as the basis functions. In this paper we consider the implementing of this scheme, and we illustrate it for some standard domains D.     

An hp-Analysis of the Local Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Diffusion Problems

We present an hp-error analysis of the local discontinuous Galerkin method for diffusion problems, considering unstructured meshes with hanging nodes and two- and three-dimensional domains. Our estimates are optimal in the meshsize h and slightly suboptimal in the polynomial approximation order p. Optimality in p is achieved for matching grids and polynomial boundary conditions.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis><Superscript>1</Superscript>-interpolation on quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes with hanging nodes

We propose a Scott-Zhang type finite element interpolation operator of first order for the approximation of H ¹-functions by means of continuous piecewise mapped bilinear or trilinear polynomials. The novelty of the proposed interpolation operator is that it is defined for general non-affine equivalent quadrilateral and hexahedral elements and so-called 1-irregular meshes with hanging nodes. We prove optimal local approximation properties of this interpolation operator for functions in H ¹. As necessary ingredients we provide a definition of a hanging node and a rigorous analysis of the issue of constrained approximation which cover both the two- and three-dimensional case in a unified fashion.      

Fully automatic hp-adaptivity for Maxwell’s equations

I report on the development of a fully automatic hp-adaptive strategy for the solution of time-harmonic Maxwell equations. The strategy produces a sequence of grids that deliver exponential convergence for both regular and singular solutions. Given a (coarse) mesh, we refine it first globally in both h and p, and solve the problem on the resulting fine mesh. We consider then the projection-based interpolants of the fine mesh solution with respect to both current and next (to be determined) coarse grid, and introduce the interpolation error decrease rate equal to the difference of the old and new (coarse) mesh interpolation errors vs. number of degrees-of-freedom added. The optimal hp-refinements leading to the next coarse grid are then determined by maximizing the interpolation error decrease rate.     

Finite element analysis of the Girkmann problem using the modern hp-version and the classical h-version

We perform finite element analysis of the so called Girkmann problem in structural mechanics. The problem involves an axially symmetric spherical shell stiffened with a foot ring and is approached (1) by using the axisymmetric formulation of linear elasticity theory and (2) by using a dimensionally reduced shell-ring model. In the first approach the problem is solved with a fully automatic hp-adaptive finite element solver whereas the classical h-version of the finite element method is used in the second approach. We study the convergence behaviour of the different numerical models and show that accurate stress resultants can be obtained with both models by using effective post-processing formulas.     

Spectral Galerkin Discretization for Hydrodynamic Stability Problems

A spectral Galerkin discretization for calculating the eigenvalues of the Orr-Sommerfeld equation is presented. The matrices of the resulting generalized eigenvalue problem are sparse. A convergence analysis of the method is presented which indicates that a) no spurious eigenvalues occur and b) reliable results can only be expected under the assumption of scale resolution, i.e., that Re/p ² is small; here Re is the Reynolds number and p is the spectral order. Numerical experiments support that the assumption of scale resolution is necessary in order to obtain reliable results. Exponential convergence of the method is shown theoretically and observed numerically. Received November 11, 1998; revised March 1, 2000