Calculating the vertex unknowns of nine point scheme on quadrilateral meshes for diffusion equation

In the construction of nine point scheme,both vertex unknowns and cell-centered unknowns are introduced,and the vertex unknowns are usually eliminated by using the interpolation of neighboring cell-centered unknowns,which often leads to lose accuracy.Instead of using interpolation,here we propose a different method of calculating the vertex unknowns of nine point scheme,which are solved independently on a new generated mesh.This new mesh is a Vorono¨i mesh based on the vertexes of primary mesh and some additional points on the interface.The advantage of this method is that it is particularly suitable for solving diffusion problems with discontinuous coeffcients on highly distorted meshes,and it leads to a symmetric positive definite matrix.We prove that the method has first-order convergence on distorted meshes.Numerical experiments show that the method obtains nearly second-order accuracy on distorted meshes.     

A Vertex-Centered and Positivity-Preserving Finite Volume Scheme for Two-Dimensional Three-Temperature Radiation Diffusion Equations on General Polygonal Meshes

Two-dimensional three-temperature (2-D 3-T) radiation diffusion equations are widely used to approximately describe the evolution of radiation energy within a multimaterial system and explain the exchange of energy among electrons, ions and photons. In this paper, we suggest a new positivity-preserving finite volume scheme for 2-D 3-T radiation diffusion equations on general polygonal meshes. The vertex unknowns are treated as primary ones for which the finite volume equations are constructed. The edge-midpoint and cell-centered unknowns are used as auxiliary ones and interpolated by the primary unknowns, which makes the final scheme a pure vertex-centered one. By comparison, most existing positivity-preserving finite volume schemes are cell-centered and based on the convex decomposition of the co-normal. Here, the co-normal decomposition is not convex in general, leading to a fixed stencil of the flux approximation and avoiding a certain search algorithm on complex grids. Moreover, the new scheme effectively alleviates the numerical heat-barrier issue suffered by most existing cell-centered or hybrid schemes in solving strongly nonlinear radiation diffusion equations. Numerical experiments demonstrate the second-order accuracy and the positivity of the solution on various distorted grids. For the problem without analytic solution, the contours of the numerical solutions obtained by our scheme on distorted meshes accord with those on smooth quadrilateral meshes.     

Post processing of solution and flux for the nodal mimetic finite difference method

We develop and analyze a post processing technique for the family of low‐order mimetic discretizations based on vertex unknowns for the numerical treatment of diffusion problems on unstructured polygonal and polyhedral meshes. The post processing works in two steps. First, from the nodal degrees of freedom, we reconstruct an elemental‐based vector field that approximates the gradient of the exact solution. Second, we solve a local problem for each mesh vertex associated with a scheme degree of freedom to determine a post processed normal flux that is conservative and divergence preserving. Theoretical results and numerical experiments for two‐dimensional (2D) and 3D benchmark problems show optimal convergence rates. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 31: 336–363, 2015     

A new multipoint flux approximation method with a quasi-local stencil (MPFA-QL) for the simulation of diffusion problems in anisotropic and heterogeneous media

In this paper, we present a new linear cell-centered finite volume multipoint flux approximation (MPFA-QL) scheme for discretizing diffusion problems on general polygonal meshes. This scheme uses a quasi-local stencil, based upon the conormal decomposition, to approximate the control face flux when solving the steady state diffusion problem, being able to reproduce piecewise linear solutions exactly and it is very robust when dealing with heterogeneous and highly anisotropic media and severely distorted meshes. In our linear scheme, we first construct the one-sided fluxes on each control surface independently and then a unique flux expression is obtained by a convex combination of the one-sided fluxes. The unknown values at the vertices that define a control surface are interpolated by means of a linearity-preserving interpolation procedure, considering control volumes surrounding these vertices. To show the potential of the MPFA-QL scheme, we solve some benchmark using triangular and quadrilateral meshes and we compare our scheme with other numerical formulations found in literature.     

三维多面体网格上扩散方程的保正格式

 针对三维任意(星形)多面体网格, 本文构造了扩散方程的一种单元中心型非线性有限体积格式, 证明了该格式具有保正性. 在该格式设计中, 除引入网格中心量外, 还引入网格节点量和网格面中心量作为中间未知量, 它们将用网格中心未知量线性组合表示, 使得格式仅有网格中心未知量作为基本未知量. 在节点量计算中, 利用网格面上的调和平均点, 设计了一种适用于三维多面体网格的局部显式加权方法. 该格式适用于求解非平面的网格表面和间断扩散系数的问题. 数值例子验证了它对光滑解具有二阶精度和保正性.     

An Improved Linearity-Preserving Cell-Centered Scheme for Nonlinear Diffusion Problems on General Meshes

In this paper, we suggest a new vertex interpolation algorithm to improve an existing cell-centered finite volume scheme for nonlinear diffusion problems on general meshes. The new vertex interpolation algorithm is derived by applying a special limit procedure to the well-known MPFA-O method. Since the MPFA-O method for 3D cases has been addressed in some studies, the new vertex interpolation algorithm can be extended to 3D cases naturally. More interesting is that the solvability of the corresponding local system is proved under some assumptions. Additionally, we modify the edge flux approximation by an edge-based discretization of diffusion coefficient, and thus the improved scheme is free of the so-called numerical heat-barrier issue suffered by many existing cell-centered or hybrid schemes. The final scheme allows arbitrary continuous or discontinuous diffusion coefficients and can be applicable to arbitrary star-shaped polygonal meshes. A second-order convergence rate for the approximate solution and a first-order accuracy for the flux are observed in numerical experiments. In the comparative experiments with some existing vertex interpolation algorithms, the new algorithm shows obvious improvement on highly distorted meshes.     

A cell edge‐based linearity‐preserving scheme for diffusion problems on two‐dimensional unstructured grids

We propose a new finite volume scheme for 2D anisotropic diffusion problems on general unstructured meshes. The main feature lies in the introduction of two auxiliary unknowns on each cell edge, and then the scheme has both cell‐centered primary unknowns and cell edge‐based auxiliary unknowns. The auxiliary unknowns are interpolated by the multipoint flux approximation technique, which reduces the scheme to a completely cell‐centered one. The derivation of the scheme satisfies the linearity‐preserving criterion that requires that a discretization scheme should be exact on linear solutions. The resulting new scheme is then called as a cell edge‐based linearity‐preserving scheme. The optimal convergence rates are numerically obtained on unstructured grids in case that the diffusion tensor is taken to be anisotropic and/or discontinuous. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The focal geometry of circular and conical meshes

Circular meshes are quadrilateral meshes all of whose faces possess a circumcircle, whereas conical meshes are planar quadrilateral meshes where the faces which meet in a vertex are tangent to a right circular cone. Both are amenable to geometric modeling – recently surface approximation and subdivision-like refinement processes have been studied. In this paper we extend the original defining property of conical meshes, namely the existence of face/face offset meshes at constant distance, to circular meshes. We study the close relation between circular and conical meshes, their vertex/vertex and face/face offsets, as well as their discrete normals and focal meshes. In particular we show how to construct a two-parameter family of circular (resp., conical) meshes from a given conical (resp., circular) mesh. We further discuss meshes which have both properties and their relation to discrete surfaces of negative Gaussian curvature. The offset properties of special quadrilateral meshes and the three-dimensional support structures derived from them are highly relevant for computational architectural design of freeform structures. Another aspect important for design is that both circular and conical meshes provide a discretization of the principal curvature lines of a smooth surface, so the mesh polylines represent principal features of the surface described by the mesh.      

A virtual element method-based positivity-preserving conservative scheme for convection–diffusion problems on polygonal meshes

In this paper, we propose a positivity-preserving conservative scheme based on the virtual element method (VEM) to solve convection–diffusion problems on general meshes. As an extension of finite element methods to general polygonal elements, the VEM has many advantages such as substantial mathematical foundations, simplicity in implementation. However, it is neither positivity-preserving nor locally conservative. The purpose of this article is to develop a new scheme, which has the same accuracy as the VEM and preserves the positivity of the numerical solution and local conservation on primary grids. The first step is to calculate the cell-vertex values by the lowest-order VEM. Then, the nonlinear two-point flux approximations are utilized to obtain the nonnegativity of cell-centered values and the local conservation property. The new scheme inherits both advantages of the VEM and the nonlinear two-point flux approximations. Numerical results show that the new scheme can reach the optimal convergence order of the virtual element theory, that is, the second-order accuracy for the solution and the first-order accuracy for its gradient. Moreover, the obtained cell-centered values are nonnegative, which demonstrates the positivity-preserving property of our new scheme.     

Optimal Point Placement for Mesh Smoothing

We study the problem of moving a vertex in an unstructured mesh of triangular, quadrilateral, or tetrahedral elements to optimize the shapes of adjacent elements. We show that many such problems can be solved in linear time using generalized linear programming. We also give efficient algorithms for some mesh smooth ing problems that do not fit into the generalized linear programming paradigm.     

THE ASYMPTOTIC PRESERVING UNIFIED GAS KINETIC SCHEME FOR GRAY RADIATIVE TRANSFER EQUATIONS ON DISTORTED QUADRILATERAL MESHES

In this paper, we consider the multi-dimensional asymptotic preserving unified gas kinetic scheme for gray radiative transfer equations on distorted quadrilateral meshes. Different from the former scheme [J. Comput. Phys. 285(2015), 265-279] on uniform meshes, in this paper, in order to obtain the boundary fluxes based on the framework of unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS), we use the real multi-dimensional reconstruction for the initial data and the macro-terms in the equation of the gray transfer equations. We can prove that the scheme is asymptotic preserving, and especially for the distorted quadrilateral meshes, a nine-point scheme [SIAM J. SCI. COMPUT. 30(2008), 1341-1361] for the diffusion limit equations is obtained, which is naturally reduced to standard five-point scheme for the orthogonal meshes. The numerical examples on distorted meshes are included to validate the current approach.     

Local flux mimetic finite difference methods

We develop a local flux mimetic finite difference method for second order elliptic equations with full tensor coefficients on polyhedral meshes. To approximate the velocity (vector variable), the method uses two degrees of freedom per element edge in two dimensions and n degrees of freedom per n-gonal mesh face in three dimensions. To approximate the pressure (scalar variable), the method uses one degree of freedom per element. A specially chosen quadrature rule for the L ²-product of vector-functions allows for a local flux elimination and reduction of the method to a cell-centered finite difference scheme for the pressure unknowns. Under certain assumptions, first-order convergence is proved for both variables and second-order convergence is proved for the pressure. The assumptions are verified on simplicial meshes for a particular quadrature rule that leads to a symmetric method. For general polyhedral meshes, non-symmetric methods are constructed based on quadrature rules that are shown to satisfy some of the assumptions. Numerical results confirm the theory.     

Efficient implementation of WENO schemes to nonuniform meshes

Most of the standard papers about the WENO schemes consider their implementation to uniform meshes only. In that case the WENO reconstruction is performed efficiently by using the algebraic expressions for evaluating the reconstruction values and the smoothness indicators from cell averages. The coefficients appearing in these expressions are constant, dependent just on the scheme order, not on the mesh size or the reconstruction function values, and can be found, for example, in Jiang and Shu (J Comp Phys 126:202–228, 1996). In problems where the geometrical properties must be taken into account or the solution has localized fine scale structure that must be resolved, it is computationally efficient to do local grid refinement. Therefore, it is also desirable to have numerical schemes, which can be applied to nonuniform meshes. Finite volume WENO schemes extend naturally to nonuniform meshes although the reconstruction becomes quite complicated, depending on the complexity of the grid structure. In this paper we propose an efficient implementation of finite volume WENO schemes to nonuniform meshes. In order to save the computational cost in the nonuniform case, we suggest the way for precomputing the coefficients and linear weights for different orders of WENO schemes. Furthermore, for the smoothness indicators that are defined in an integral form we present the corresponding algebraic expressions in which the coefficients obtained as a linear combination of divided differences arise. In order to validate the new implementation, resulting schemes are applied in different test examples.      

扩散方程保正的有限体积格式

在大变形网格上数值求解多介质扩散方程时, 如何构造具有保正性的扩散格式一直是人们关注的难题. 本文将简要综述与保正性相关的扩散格式的研究历史, 并为解决这一难题提出新的设计途径,构造出新的具有较高精度的单元中心型守恒保正格式, 它们可兼顾网格几何变形和物理量变化. 本文将给出数值实验结果, 验证新格式在变形的网格上保持非负性.     

Quadrilateral surface meshes without self-intersecting dual cycles for hexahedral mesh generation

Several promising approaches for hexahedral mesh generation work as follows: Given a prescribed quadrilateral surface mesh they first build the combinatorial dual of the hexahedral mesh. This dual mesh is converted into the primal hexahedral mesh, and finally embedded and smoothed into the given domain. Two such approaches, the modified whisker weaving algorithm by Folwell and Mitchell, as well as a method proposed by the author, rely on an iterative elimination of certain dual cycles in the surface mesh. An intuitive interpretation of the latter method is that cycle eliminations correspond to complete sheets of hexahedra in the volume mesh.

Although these methods can be shown to work in principle, the quality of the generated meshes heavily relies on the dual cycle structure of the given surface mesh. In particular, it seems that difficulties in the hexahedral meshing process and poor mesh qualities are often due to self-intersecting dual cycles. Unfortunately, all previous work on quadrilateral surface mesh generation has focused on quality issues of the surface mesh alone but has disregarded its suitability for a high-quality extension to a three-dimensional mesh.

In this paper, we develop a new method to generate quadrilateral surface meshes without self-intersecting dual cycles. This method reuses previous b-matching problem formulations of the quadrilateral mesh refinement problem. The key insight is that the b-matching solution can be decomposed into a collection of simple cycles and paths of multiplicity two, and that these cycles and paths can be consistently embedded into the dual surface mesh.

A second tool uses recursive splitting of components into simpler subcomponents by insertion of internal two-manifolds. We show that such a two-manifold can be meshed with quadrilaterals such that the induced dual cycle structure of each subcomponent is free of self-intersections if the original component satisfies this property. Experiments show that we can achieve hexahedral meshes with a good quality.     

Mesh-dependent stability for finite element approximations of parabolic equations with mass lumping

In this paper, based on some mesh-dependent estimates on the extreme eigenvalues of a general finite element system defined on a simplicial mesh, novel and sharp bounds on the permissible time step size are derived for the mass lumping finite element approximations of parabolic equations. The bounds are dependent not only on the mesh size but also on the mesh shape. These results provide guidance to the stability of numerical solutions of parabolic problems in relation to the unstructured geometric meshing. Numerical experiments on both uniform meshes and adaptive meshes are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.     

ALTERING CONNECTIVITY WITH LARGE DEFORMATION MESH FOR LAGRANGIAN METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION IN MULTIPLE MATERIAL SIMULATION

A new approach for treating the mesh with Lagrangian scheme of finite volume method is presented. It has been proved that classical Lagrangian method is difficult to cope with large deformation in tracking material particles due to severe distortion of cells, and the changing connectivity of the mesh seems especially attractive for solving such issues. The mesh with large deformation based on computational geometry is optimized by using new method. This paper develops a processing system for arbitrary polygonal unstructured grid, the intelligent variable grid neighborhood technologies is utilized to improve the quality of mesh in calculation process, and arbitrary polygonal mesh is used in the Lagrangian finite volume scheme. The performance of the new method is demonstrated through series of numerical examples, and the simulation capability is efficiently presented in coping with the systems with large deformations.     

The influence of boundary approximation on transfer operators between non-nested meshes

Finite element methods with non-matching meshes can offer increased flexibility in many applications. Although the specific reasons for the use of non-matching meshes are apparently diverse, the common difficulty in all these numerical methods is the transfer of finite element approximation associated with one mesh to finite element approximation associated with another mesh. This paper complements previous quantitative studies of transfer operators between finite element spaces associated with unrelated meshes (T. Dickopf, R. Krause, Evaluating local approximations of the L²-orthogonal projection between non-nested finite element spaces, Tech. Rep. 2012-01, Institute of Computational Science, Università della Svizzera italiana, 2012). We study the important use case in which functions are mapped between a regular background mesh and an unstructured mesh of a complex geometry. Here, the former does not approximate the latter. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A multipoint flux mixed finite element method on distorted quadrilaterals and hexahedra

In this paper, we develop a new mixed finite element method for elliptic problems on general quadrilateral and hexahedral grids that reduces to a cell-centered finite difference scheme. A special non-symmetric quadrature rule is employed that yields a positive definite cell-centered system for the pressure by eliminating local velocities. The method is shown to be accurate on highly distorted rough quadrilateral and hexahedral grids, including hexahedra with non-planar faces. Theoretical and numerical results indicate first-order convergence for the pressure and face fluxes.