FINITE ELEMENT METHOD ON NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF STRATUM CORNEUM＇S PENETRATION PROPERTY

How the outer substance could penetrate through the skin lies in the stratum corneum, because it is the main barrier in the multi-layers of the skin. Supposing the keratin cell with a special geometry as tetrakaidecahedron, the penetration property of stratum corneum was the key problem which was numerically simulated with finite element method. At first the discretization of the stratum corneum region was given in two steps： first, the discretization of the keratin cell; second, the discretization of fattiness that surrounds the keratin. Then there was the work of numerical simulation. In this procedure, the finite element method and the multi-grid method were used. The former was to obtain the discretization of basic elements; the latter was to decrease the high frequency error. At last the visualization of the numerical simulation was shown.     

PARAMETRIC VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE BASED ELASTIC-PLASTIC ANALYSIS OF HETEROGENEOUS MATERIALS WITH VORONOI FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

The Voronoi cell finite element method (VCFEM) is adopted to overcome the limitations of the classic displacement based finite element method in the numerical simulation of heterogeneous materials. The parametric variational principle and quadratic programming method are developed for elastic-plastic Voronoi finite element analysis of two-dimensional problems. Finite element formulations are derived and a standard quadratic programming model is deduced from the elastic-plastic equations. Influence of microscopic heterogeneities on the overall mechanical response of heterogeneous materials is studied in detail. The overall properties of heterogeneous materials depend mostly on the size, shape and distribution of the material phases of the microstructure. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the method developed.     

Enriched goal-oriented error estimation for fracture problems solved by continuum-based shell extended finite element method简

An enriched goal-oriented error estimation method with extended degrees of freedom is developed to estimate the error in the continuum-based shell extended finite element method. It leads to high quality local error bounds in three-dimensional fracture mechanics simulation which involves enrichments to solve the singularity in crack tip. This enriched goal-oriented error estimation gives a chance to evaluate this continuum- based shell extended finite element method simulation. With comparisons of reliability to the stress intensity factor calculation in stretching and bending, the accuracy of the continuum-based shell extended finite element method simulation is evaluated, and the reason of error is discussed.     

Finite volume element method for analysis of unsteady reaction–diffusion problems

A finite volume element method is developed for analyzing unsteady scalar reaction-diffusion problems in two dimensions. The method combines the concepts that are employed in the finite volume and the finite element method together. The finite volume method is used to discretize the unsteady reaction-diffusion equation, while the finite element method is applied to estimate the gradient quantities at cell faces. Robustness and efficiency of the combined method have been evaluated on uniform rectangular grids by using available numerical solutions of the two-dimensional reaction-diffusion problems. The numerical solutions demonstrate that the combined method is stable and can provide accurate solution without spurious oscillation along the high-gradient boundary layers.     

Improvement of FEM’s dynamic property

The discretization size is limited by the sampling theorem, and the limit is one half of the wavelength of the highest frequency of the problem. However, one half of the wavelength is an ideal value. In general, the discretization size that can ensure the accuracy of the simulation is much smaller than this value in the traditional finite element method. The possible reason of this phenomenon is analyzed in this paper, and an efficient method is given to improve the simulation accuracy.     

MoM-based topology optimization method for planar metallic antenna design

The metallic antenna design problem can be treated as a problem to find the optimal distribution of con-ductive material in a certain domain. Although this problem is well suited for topology optimization method, the volu-metric distribution of conductive material based on 3D finite element method (FEM) has been known to cause numerical bottlenecks such as the skin depth issue, meshed“air regions”and other numerical problems. In this paper a topology opti-mization method based on the method of moments (MoM) for configuration design of planar metallic antenna was pro-posed. The candidate structure of the planar metallic antenna was approximately considered as a resistance sheet with position-dependent impedance. In this way, the electromag-netic property of the antenna can be analyzed easily by using the MoM to solve the radiation problem of the resistance sheet in a finite domain. The topology of the antenna was depicted with the distribution of the impedance related to the design parameters or relative densities. The conductive mate-rial (metal) was assumed to have zero impedance, whereas the non-conductive material was simulated as a material with a finite but large enough impedance. The interpola-tion function of the impedance between conductive material and non-conductive material was taken as a tangential func-tion. The design of planar metallic antenna was optimized for maximizing the efficiency at the target frequency. The results illustrated the effectiveness of the method.     

FUZZY ARITHMETIC AND SOLVING OF THE STATIC GOVERNING EQUATIONS OF FUZZY FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

The key component of finite element analysis of structures with fuzzy parameters, which is associated with handling of some fuzzy information and arithmetic relation of fuzzy variables , was the solving of the governing equations of fuzzy finite element method. Based on a given interval representation of fuzzy numbers, some arithmetic rules of fuzzy numbers and fuzzy variables were developed in terms of the properties of interval arithmetic. According to the rules and by the theory of interval finite element method, procedures for solving the static governing equations of fuzzy finite element method of structures were presented. By the proposed procedure, the possibility distributions of responses of fuzzy structures can be generated in terms of the membership functions of the input fuzzy numbers. It is shown by a numerical example that the computational burden of the presented procedures is low and easy to implement. The effectiveness and usefulness of the presented procedures are also illustrated.     

Comparison of methods for vibration analysis of electrostatic precipitators

The paper presents two methods for the formulation of free vibration analysis of collecting electrodes of precipitators.The first,called the hybrid finite element method, combines the finit element method used for calculations of spring deformations with the rigid finite element method used to reflect mass and geometrical features,which is called the hybrid finite element method.As a result,a model with a diagonal mass matrix is obtained.Due to a specific geometry of the electrodes,which are long plates of complicated shapes,the second method proposed is the strip method which is a semi-analytical method.The strip method allows us to formulate the equations of motion with a considerably smaller number of generalized coordinates.Results of numerical calculations obtained by both methods are compared with those obtained using commercial software like ANSYS and ABAQUS.Good compatibility of results is achieved.     

Biothermomechanics of skin tissues

Biothermomechanics of skin is highly interdisciplinary involving bioheat transfer, burn damage, biomechanics and neurophysiology. During heating, thermally induced mechanical stress arises due to the thermal denaturation of collagen, resulting in macroscale shrinkage. Thus, the strain, stress, temperature and thermal pain/damage are highly correlated; in other words, the problem is fully coupled. The aim of this study is to develop a computational approach to examine the heat transfer process and the heat-induced mechanical response, so that the differences among the clinically applied heating modalities can be quantified. Exact solutions for temperature, thermal damage and thermal stress for a single-layer skin model were first derived for different boundary conditions. For multilayer models, numerical simulations using the finite difference method (FDM) and finite element method (FEM) were used to analyze the temperature, burn damage and thermal stress distributions in the skin tissue. The results showed that the thermomechanical behavior of skin tissue is very complex: blood perfusion has little effect on thermal damage but large influence on skin temperature distribution, which, in turn, influences significantly the resulting thermal stress field; the stratum corneum layer, although very thin, has a large effect on the thermomechanical behavior of skin, suggesting that it should be properly accounted for in the modeling of skin thermal stresses; the stress caused by non-uniform temperature distribution in the skin may also contribute to the thermal pain sensation.     

Higher order finite element methods and multigrid solvers in a benchmark problem for the 3D Navier–Stokes equations

This paper presents a numerical study of the 3D flow around a cylinder which was defined as a benchmark problem for the steady state Navier–Stokes equations within the DFG high‐priority research program flow simulation with high‐performance computers by Schafer and Turek (Vol. 52, Vieweg: Braunschweig, 1996). The first part of the study is a comparison of several finite element discretizations with respect to the accuracy of the computed benchmark parameters. It turns out that boundary fitted higher order finite element methods are in general most accurate. Our numerical study improves the hitherto existing reference values for the benchmark parameters considerably. The second part of the study deals with efficient and robust solvers for the discrete saddle point problems. All considered solvers are based on coupled multigrid methods. The flexible GMRES method with a multiple discretization multigrid method proves to be the best solver. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FEM-FDM coupled liquefaction analysis of a porous soil using an elasto-plastic model

The phenomenon of liquefaction is one of the most important subjects in Earthquake Engineering and Coastal Engineering. In the present study, the governing equations of such coupling problems as soil skeleton and pore water are obtained through application of the two-phase mixture theory. Using au-p (displacement of the solid phase-pore water pressure) formulation, a simple and practical numerical method for the liquefaction analysis is formulated. The finite difference method (FDM) is used for the spatial discretization of the continuity equation to define the pore water pressure at the center of the element, while the finite element method (FEM) is used for the spatial discretization of the equilibrium equation. FEM-FDM coupled analysis succeeds in reducing the degrees of freedom in the descretized equations. The accuracy of the proposed numerical method is addressed through a comparison of the numerical results and the analytical solutions for the transient response of saturated porous solids. An elasto-plastic constitutive model based on the non-linear kinematic hardening rule is formulated to describe the stress-strain behavior of granular materials under cyclic loading. Finally, the applicability of the proposed numerical method is examined. The following two numerical examples are analyzed in this study: (1) the behavior of seabed deposits under wave action, and (2) a numerical simulation of shaking table test of coal fly ash deposit.     

Some improvements on free surface simulation by the particle finite element method

The Lagrangian method has become increasingly popular in numerical simulation of free surface problems. In this paper, after a brief review of a recent Lagrangian method, namely the particle finite element method, some issues are discussed and some improvements are made. The least‐square finite element method is adopted to simplify the solving of the Navier–Stokes equations. An adaptive time method is derived to obtain suitable time steps. A mass correction procedure is imported to improve the mass conservation in long time calculations and time discretization scheme is adopted to decrease the pressure oscillations during the calculations. Finally, the method is used to simulate a series of examples and the results are compared with the commercial FLOW3D code. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of unsteady fluid filtration caused by the exploitation of underground resources

The land subsidence near an oil-producing region is simulated. The elastic filtration regime (the Terzaghi model) is used. The numerical simulation is performed by the discretization of the boundary value problem in spatial variables with the aid of the finite element method and by the finite difference discretization in time. The numerical algorithm in use is implemented as a software package. The problem of pumping a fluid from a five-layer medium is solved as an illustrative example.     

基于变形场不同离散方法的柔性机器人动力学建模与仿真

研究了基于变形场不同离散方法的柔性机器人动力学建模和仿真问题. 针对多杆空间链式柔性机器人系统,采用假设模态法、有限元法、Bezier 插值方法和B 样条插值方法对柔性杆变形场进行描述,构造统一形式,运用Lagrange 方法,结合4×4 齐次变换矩阵,在计入柔性杆横向弯曲变形引起的纵向缩短的情况下,推导得到多杆空间柔性机器人动力学方程,并编制基于4 种变形场不同离散方法的多杆空间链式柔性机器人仿真软件.通过仿真算例对柔性机器人系统的动力学问题进行研究. 仿真结果表明:有限元法的计算效率较低;假设模态法在处理较大变形问题时其精度低于Bezier 插值方法和B 样条插值方法的精度;作为新的变形体离散方法,Bezier 插值方法和B 样条插值方法可以有效地描述柔性杆的变形场,并能运用到多杆空间柔性机器人动力学建模中.      

Interval Arithmetic and Static Interval Finite Element Method

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Development and validation of a SUPG finite element scheme for the compressible Navier–Stokes equations using a modified inviscid flux discretization

This paper considers the streamline‐upwind Petrov–Galerkin (SUPG) method applied to the unsteady compressible Navier–Stokes equations in conservation‐variable form. The spatial discretization, including a modified approach for interpolating the inviscid flux terms in the SUPG finite element formulation, and the second‐order accurate time discretization are presented. The numerical method is discussed in detail. The performance of the algorithm is then investigated by considering inviscid flow past a circular cylinder. Validation of the finite element formulation via comparisons with experimental data for high‐Mach number perfect gas laminar flows is presented, with a specific focus on comparisons with experimentally measured skin friction and convective heat transfer on a 15° compression ramp. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.