The particle finite element method: a powerful tool to solve incompressible flows with free‐surfaces and breaking waves

Particle Methods are those in which the problem is represented by a discrete number of particles. Each particle moves accordingly with its own mass and the external/internal forces applied to it. Particle Methods may be used for both, discrete and continuous problems. In this paper, a Particle Method is used to solve the continuous fluid mechanics equations. To evaluate the external applied forces on each particle, the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations using a Lagrangian formulation are solved at each time step. The interpolation functions are those used in the Meshless Finite Element Method and the time integration is introduced by an implicit fractional‐step method. In this manner classical stabilization terms used in the momentum equations are unnecessary due to lack of convective terms in the Lagrangian formulation. Once the forces are evaluated, the particles move independently of the mesh. All the information is transmitted by the particles. Fluid–structure interaction problems including free‐fluid‐surfaces, breaking waves and fluid particle separation may be easily solved with this methodology. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fast higher-order integral equation method for solution of the full potential equation around airfoils

A method based on an integral equation formulation is described for solution of the full potential equation in terms of the velocity field. In addition to the conventional distribution of singularities over the boundaries of field, a field source distribution is added in the flow region in order to represent the non-linear compressibility effect. The unknown source distribution in the field is calculated from the full potential equation by iteratively updating the normal velocity boundary conditions. In order to treat more complex configurations, local transformations provided by higher-order elements are used. Computation time required for integration of the domain is improved by using a domain decomposition. Results of calculations demonstrate substantial improvement in computation time and are in good agreement with independent results.     

Acoustic calculations with the hybrid boundary element method in time domain

The boundary element method (BEM) is an efficient tool for the calculation of acoustic wave propagation in fluids. Transient waves can be solved by either using a formulation in frequency domain along with an inverse Fourier transformation or a time domain formulation. To increase the efficiency for the solver and allow for an efficient coupling with finite element domains the symmetry of the system matrices is advantageous. If Hamilton's principle is used, a symmetric variational formulation can be established with the velocity potential as field variable. The single field principle is generalized as multifield principle as basis of a hybrid BEM for the calculation of acoustic fields in compressible fluids in time domain. The state variables are separated into boundary variables, which are approximated by piecewise polynomials and domain variables, which are approximated by a superposition of weighted fundamental solutions. In both approximations the time and space dependency is separated. This is why static fundamental solution can be used for the field approximation. The domain integrals are eliminated, respectively, transformed into boundary integrals and an equation of motion with symmetric mass and stiffness matrix is obtained, which can be solved by a direct time integration scheme or by mode superposition. The time derivative of the equation of motion leads to a formulation with pressure and acoustic flux on the boundary for an easier interpretation of the variables.     

A monolithic finite-element formulation for magnetohydrodynamics

This work develops a new monolithic strategy for magnetohydrodynamics based on a continuous velocity–pressure formulation. The magnetic field is interpolated in the same way as the velocity field, and the entire formulation is within a nodal finite-element framework. The velocity and pressure interpolations are chosen so that they satisfy the Babuska–Brezzi (BB) conditions. In most of the existing formulations, a stabilized formulation is used that requires a stabilization term, and some associated mesh-dependent parameters that need to be adjusted. In contrast, no such parameters need to be adjusted in the current formulation, making it more user-friendly and robust. Both transient and steady-state formulations are developed for two- and three-dimensional geometries. An exact linearization of the monolithic strategy ensures that rapid (quadratic) convergence is achieved within each time (or load) step, while the stable nature of the interpolations used ensures that no instabilities arise in the solution. An existing analytical solution is corrected. The coarse mesh accuracy is shown to be better compared with other existing strategies in several benchmark problems, showing that the developed formulation is both robust and efficient.     

Equilibrium and stability of interfaces between polarizable fluids: theory and computations

 A variational formulation is presented of the equilibrium and stability of interfaces between polarizable fluids in the presence of external fields. Equilibrium and stability demand minimization of an appropriate energy functional. The necessary conditions for the minimization give rise to a nonlinear and free boundary problem which is discretized and solved for the field in the fluids and the interface shape with the finite element method and Newton iteration. The sufficient conditions boil down to a generalized eigenproblem, which needs to be solved for the eigenvalues of smallest magnitude and the corresponding eigenvectors. The case studied is a rotating ferromagnetic liquid drop in an external magnetic field. Axisymmetric solutions are computed at different values of the rotational speed. They lose stability to axisymmetric disturbances at turning points and they exchange stability with non-axisymmetric solutions at bifurcation points.     

A new three-dimensional mixed finite element for direct numerical simulation of compressible viscoelastic flows with moving free surfaces

A Mixed Finite Element (MFE) method for 3D non-steady flow of a viscoelastic compressible fluid is presented. It was used to compute polymer injection flows in a complex mold cavity, which involves moving free surfaces. The flow equations were derived from the Navier-Stokes incompressible equations, and we extended a mixed finite element method for incompressible viscous flow to account for compressibility (using the Tait model) and viscoelasticity (using a Pom-Pom like model). The flow solver uses tetrahedral elements and a mixed velocity/pressure/extra-stress/density formulation, where elastic terms are solved by decoupling our system and density variation is implicitly considered. A new DEVSS-like method is also introduced naturally from the MINI-element formulation. This method has the great advantage of a low memory requirement. At each time slab, once the velocity has been calculated, all evolution equations (free surface and material evolution) are solved by a space-time finite element method. This method is a generalization of the discontinuous Galerkin method, that shows a strong robustness with respect to both re-entrant corners and flow front singularities. Validation tests of the viscoelastic and free surface models implementation are shown, using literature benchmark examples. Results obtained in industrial 3D geometries underline the robustness and the efficiency of the proposed methods.     

Free vibration analysis of non-axisymmetric and axisymmetric structures by the dual reciprocity BEM

The dual reciprocity boundary element method (DR/BEM) is employed for the free vibration analysis of three-dimensional non-axisymmetric and axisymmetric elastic solids. The method uses the elastostatic fundamental solution in the integral formulation of elastodynamics and as a result of that, an inertial volume integral is created in addition to the boundary ones. This volume integral is transformed into a surface integral by invoking the reciprocal theorem and expanding of the displacement field into a series involving seven different approximation functions. The approximation functions used are local radial basis functions (RBFs) and are applied in combination (or not) with global basis functions (augmentation). All these functions are compared in terms of the accuracy they provide. The axisymmetric case is efficiently treated with the aid of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm in order to provide even non-axisymmetric vibration modes. Two representative numerical examples involving the determination of natural frequencies and modal shapes of an elastic cube and an elastic cylinder serve to investigate in detail the potentiality of each of the seven approximation functions tested to provide results of high accuracy and to reach useful practical conclusions.     

A novel versatile multilayer hybrid stress solid-shell element

This paper presents a versatile multilayer locking free hybrid stress solid-shell element that can be readily employed for a wide range of geometrically linear elastic structural analyses, i.e. from shell-like isotropic structures to multilayer anisotropic composites. This solid-shell element has eight nodes with only displacement degrees of freedom and a few internal parameters that provide the locking free behavior and accurate interlaminar stress resolution through the element thickness. These elements can be stacked on top of each other to model multilayer structures, fulfilling the interlaminar stress continuity at the interlayer surfaces and zero traction conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of composite laminates. The element formulation is based on the modified form of the well-known Fraeijs de Veubeke–Hu–Washizu (FHW) multifield variational principle with enhanced assumed strains (EAS formulation) and assumed natural strains (ANS formulation) to alleviate the different types of locking phenomena in solid-shell elements. The distinct feature of the present formulation is its ability to accurately calculate the interlaminar stress field in multilayer structures, which is achieved by incorporating an assumed stress field in a standard EAS formulation based on the FHW principle. To assess the present formulation’s accuracy, a variety of popular numerical benchmark examples related to element patch tests, convergence, mesh distortion, shell and laminated composite analyses are investigated and the results are compared with those available in the literature. This assessment reveals that the proposed solid-shell formulation provides very accurate results for a wide range of structural analyses.     

A meshfree weak-strong (MWS) form method for time dependent problems

A meshfree weak-strong (MWS) form method, which is based on a combination of both the strong form and the local weak form, is formulated for time dependent problems. In the MWS method, the problem domain and its boundary are represented by a set of distributed field nodes. The strong form or the collocation method is used to discretize the time-dependent governing equations for all nodes whose local quadrature domains do not intersect with natural (derivative or Neumann) boundaries. Therefore, no numerical integration is required for these nodes. The local weak form, which needs the local numerical integration, is only used for nodes on or near the natural boundaries. The natural boundary conditions can then be easily imposed to produce stable and accurate solutions. The moving least squares (MLS) approximation is used to construct the meshfree shape functions in this study. Numerical examples of the free vibration and dynamic analyses of two-dimensional structures as well as a typical microelectromechanical system (MEMS) device are presented to demonstrate the effectivity, stability and accuracy of the present MWS formulation.     

A hybrid element formulation for the three‐dimensional penalty finite element analysis of incompressible fluids

This work presents a hybrid element formulation for the three‐dimensional penalty finite element analysis of incompressible Newtonian fluids. The formulation is based on a mixed variational statement in which velocity and stresses are treated as independent field variables. The main advantage of this formulation is that it bypasses the use of ad hoc techniques such as selective reduced integration that are commonly used in penalty‐based finite element formulations, and directly yields high accuracy for the velocity and stress fields without the need to carry out smoothing. In addition, since the stress degrees of freedom are condensed out at an element level, the cost of solving for the global degrees of freedom is the same as in a standard penalty finite element method, although the gain in accuracy for both the velocity and stress (including the pressure) fields is quite significant. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fully variational 6th order elastodynamic formulation for the treatment of blast or fast impulsive forces

A new variational space-time formulation is used to treat elastodynamic problems with impulsive loads that propagate at fast velocities, as blasts or explosions. Based on the new formulation, a new family of fully variational time integration algorithms for elastodynamic problems is formulated. In the framework of this new family of algorithms, a conditionally stable time integration algorithm of the 6th order and the variational treatment of impulsive forces propagating at high speeds are developed. The time integration algorithm is based on Hermite’s polynomials, with independent field of velocities, and discontinuous time derivative of the displacement field. Numerical examples are performed to test the computational efficiency of the new approach to treat fast dynamic impulsive forces.     

Eulerian elasto‐visco‐plastic formulations for residual stress prediction

A stabilized, Galerkin finite element formulation for modeling the elasto‐visco‐plastic response of quasi‐steady‐state processes, such as welding, laser surfacing, rolling and extrusion, is presented in an Eulerian frame. The mixed formulation consists of four field variables, such as velocity, stress, deformation gradient and internal variable, which is used to describe the evolution of the material's resistance to plastic flow. The streamline upwind Petrov–Galerkin method is used to eliminate spurious oscillations, which may be caused by the convection‐type of stress, deformation gradient and internal variable evolution equations. A progressive solution strategy is introduced to improve the convergence of the Newton–Raphson solution procedure. Two two‐dimensional numerical examples are implemented to verify the accuracy of the Eulerian formulation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An advanced BEM for electromagnetic wave scattering problems with axisymmetric dielectric particles

An advanced boundary element/fast Fourier transform (FFT) methodology for solving axisymmetric electromagnetic wave scattering problems with general, non-axisymmetric boundary conditions is presented. The incident field as well as the boundary quantities of the problem are expanded in complex Fourier series with respect to the circumferential direction. Each of the expanding coefficients satisfies a surface integral equation which, due to axisymmetry, is reduced to a line integral along the surface generator of the body and an integral over the angle of revolution. The first integral is evaluated by discretizing the meridional line of the body into isoparametric elements and employing Gauss quadrature. The integration over the angle of revolution is performed simultaneously for all the expanding coefficients through the FFT. The singular integrals are computed directly with high accuracy. Representative numerical examples demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed boundary element formulation.     

Real‐time direct integration of reduced solid dynamics equations

A new method is developed here for the real‐time integration of the equations of solid dynamics based on the use of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)–proper generalized decomposition (PGD) approaches and direct time integration. The method is based upon the formulation of solid dynamics equations as a parametric problem, depending on their initial conditions. A sort of black‐box integrator that takes the resulting displacement field of the current time step as input and (via POD) provides the result for the subsequent time step at feedback rates on the order of 1 kHz is obtained. To avoid the so‐called curse of dimensionality produced by the large amount of parameters in the formulation (one per degree of freedom of the full model), a combined POD–PGD strategy is implemented. Examples that show the promising results of this technique are included. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An adaptive fixed mesh method for modelling and simulating of unsteady two‐phase flows with sharp physical interfaces

We present in this paper a new computational method for simulation of two‐phase flow problems with moving boundaries and sharp physical interfaces. An adaptive interface‐capturing technique (ICT) of the Eulerian type is developed for capturing the motion of the interfaces (free surfaces) in an unsteady flow state. The adaptive method is mainly based on the relative boundary conditions of the zero pressure head, at which the interface is corresponding to a free surface boundary. The definition of the free surface boundary condition is used as a marker for identifying the position of the interface (free surface) in the two‐phase flow problems. An initial‐value‐problem (IVP) partial differential equation (PDE) is derived from the dynamic conditions of the interface, and it is designed to govern the motion of the interface in time. In this adaptive technique, the Navier–Stokes equations written for two incompressible fluids together with the IVP are solved numerically over the flow domain. An adaptive mass conservation algorithm is constructed to govern the continuum of the fluid. The finite element method (FEM) is used for the spatial discretization and a fully coupled implicit time integration method is applied for the advancement in time. FE‐stabilization techniques are added to the standard formulation of the discretization, which possess good stability and accuracy properties for the numerical solution. The adaptive technique is tested in simulation of some numerical examples. With the test problems presented here, we demonstrated that the adaptive technique is a simple tool for modelling and computation of complex motion of sharp physical interfaces in convection–advection‐dominated flow problems. We also demonstrated that the IVP and the evolution of the interface function are coupled explicitly and implicitly to the system of the computed unknowns in the flow domain. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coupled symmetric BE–FE method for acoustic fluid–structure interaction

A coupled symmetric BE–FE method for the calculation of linear acoustic fluid–structure interaction in time and frequency domain is presented. In the coupling formulation a newly developed hybrid boundary element method (HBEM) will be used to describe the behaviour of the compressible fluid. The HBEM is based on Hamilton's principle formulated with the velocity potential. The state variables are separated into boundary variables which are approximated by piecewise polynomial functions and domain variables which are approximated by a superposition of static fundamental solutions. The domain integrals are eliminated, respectively, replaced by boundary integrals and a boundary element formulation with a symmetric mass and stiffness matrix is obtained as result. The structure is discretized by FEM. The coupling conditions fulfil C¹-continuity on the interface. The coupled formulation can also be used for eigenfrequency analyses by transforming it from time domain into frequency domain.     

A rotation‐free shell formulation using nodal integration for static and dynamic analyses of structures

This paper proposed a rotation‐free thin shell formulation with nodal integration for elastic–static, free vibration, and explicit dynamic analyses of structures using three‐node triangular cells and linear interpolation functions. The formulation is based on the classic Kirchhoff plate theory, in which only three translational displacements are treated as the filed variables. Based on each node, the integration domains are further formed, where the generalized gradient smoothing technique and Green divergence theorem that can relax the continuity requirement for trial function are used to construct the curvature filed. With the aid of strain smoothing operation and tensor transformation rule, the smoothed strains in the integration domain can be finally expressed by constants. The principle of virtual work is then used to establish the discretized system equations. The translational boundary conditions are imposed same as the practice of standard finite element method, while the rotational boundary conditions are constrained in the process of constructing the smoothed curvature filed. To test the performance of the present formulation, several numerical examples, including both benchmark problems and practical engineering cases, are studied. The results demonstrate that the present method possesses better accuracy and higher efficiency for both static and dynamic problems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integral formulation to simulate the viscous sintering of a two-dimensional lattice of periodic unit cells

In this paper a mathematical formulation is presented which is used to calculate the flow field of a two-dimensional Stokes fluid that is represented by a lattice of unit cells with pores inside. The formulation is described in terms of an integral equation based on Lorentz's formulation, whereby the fundamental solution is used that represents the flow due to a periodic lattice of point forces. The derived integral equation is applied to model the viscous sintering phenomenon, viz. the process that occurs (for example) during the densification of a porous glass heated to such a high temperature that it becomes a viscous fluid. The numerical simulation is carried out by solving the governing Stokes flow equations for a fixed domain through a Boundary Element Method (BEM). The resulting velocity field then determines an approximate geometry at a next time point which is obtained by an implicit integration method. From this formulation quite a few theoretical insights can be obtained of the viscous sintering process with respect to both pore size and pore distribution of the porous glass. In particular, this model is able to examine the consequences of microstructure on the evolution of pore-size distribution, as will be demonstrated for several example problems.     

Finite rotation exact geometry solid-shell element for laminated composite structures through extended SaS formulation and 3D analytical integration

A nonlinear exact geometry hybrid-mixed four-node solid-shell element using the sampling surfaces (SaS) formulation is developed for the analysis of the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress that extends the authors' finite element (Int J Numer Methods Eng. 2019;117:498-522) to laminated composite shells. The SaS formulation is based on choosing inside the layers the arbitrary number of SaS parallel to the middle surface and located at Chebyshev polynomial nodes in order to introduce the displacements of these surfaces as basic shell unknowns. The external surfaces and interfaces are also included into a set of SaS. The proposed hybrid-mixed solid-shell element is based on the Hu-Washizu variational principle and is completely free of shear and membrane locking. The tangent stiffness matrix is evaluated by efficient three-dimensional (3D) analytical integration. As a result, the developed exact geometry solid-shell element exhibits a superior performance in the case of coarse meshes and allows the use of load increments, which are much larger than possible with existing displacement-based solid-shell elements. It could be useful for the 3D stress analysis of thick and thin doubly curved laminated composite shells because the SaS formulation gives the possibility to obtain the 3D solutions with a prescribed accuracy.