Modeling of material failure by combining the advantages of embedded strong discontinuity approaches and classical interface elements

A finite element formulation within the framework of the Strong Discontinuity Approach suitable for the simulation of crack growth is presented. The formulation allows for intersecting discontinuities and similarly to classical interface elements, the cracks are introduced parallel to the element facets. However and in contrast to interface elements, the discontinuities are directly embedded in finite elements, based on the Enhanced Assumed Strain concept. It is shown that a realistic prediction of the mechanical response requires the consideration of more than one crack within each finite element. The proposed formulation is suitable to overcome locking effects and it automatically fulfills crack path continuity. The approach is strictly local yielding an efficient numerical formulation. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A unifying formulation of the discrete and continuum approximations for embedded discontinuities

A methodology for the numerical implementation of embedded discontinuities into the finite element method is developed. This is applicable for the discrete and continuum approximations of discontinuities. The variational formulation of the problem of a solid with discontinuities is established for both approximations, yielding the equations used in this methodology. Three sets of equations are obtained by applying this methodology; all are suitable to be numerically implemented. To show the application potential of this method, the numerical simulation of the formation and propagation of a discontinuity in a concrete specimen is carried out and the results are compared with those from the physical experiment, demonstrating the adequacy of the methodology and its corresponding implementations to model discontinuities. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2006     

A fully variational strong discontinuity approach at finite strains

A novel, fully variational three-dimensional finite element formulation for the modeling of locally embedded strong discontinuities at finite strains is presented. The proposed numerical model is based on the Enhanced Assumed Strain concept with an additive decomposition of the displacement gradient into a conforming and an enhanced part. The discontinuous component of the displacement field which is associated with the failure in the modeled structure is isolated in the enhanced part of the deformation gradient. In contrast to previous works, a variational constitutive update is used. The internal variables are determined by minimizing a pseudo-elastic potential. The advantages of such a formulation are well known, e.g. the tangent stiffness matrix is symmetric, standard optimization algorithms can be applied and it represents a natural basis for error estimation and mesh adaption. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A numerical approach for the simulation of ductile fracture with embedded discontinuities

In the present study, a computational approach for the numerical simulation of ductile fracture within the framework of the finite element method is proposed. In the developed macroscopic formulation, the inelastic behavior in the bulk of the material is described by the finite elasto‐plastic material model proposed in [4]. The failure process is modeled by introducing discontinuities when a special local fracture criterion is satisfied. The discontinuities are incorporated via special triangular finite elements with embedded interfaces following the line of [2]. Finally, the numerical procedure is evaluated for a twodimensional representative test problem. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Update to the MUSIG model in ANSYS CFX for reliable modelling of bubble coalescence and breakup

The MUSIG (Multiple Size Group) model in the commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX is a population balance approach for describing binary bubble coalescence and breakup events. It is widely used in the simulation of poly-dispersed bubbly flows. The purpose of this work is to identify the internal inconsistencies in the discrete method that is applied for the solution of the population balance equation in MUSIG, and to propose an internally consistent one for discretising the source and sink terms that result from bubble coalescence and breakup. The new formulation is superior to the existing ones in preserving both mass and number density of bubbles, allowing arbitrary discretisation schemes and is free of costly numerical integrations. The numerical results on the evolution of bubble size distributions in bubbly flows reveal that the inconsistency in the original MUSIG regarding bubble breakup is non-negligible for both academic and practical cases. The discussion on the effect of internal inconsistency as well as updates to the model presented in this work are necessary and important for calibration of bubble coalescence and breakup models using the MUSIG approach.     

Extended Finite Element Method for hygro-mechanical analysis of crack propagation in porous materials

In computational structural analyses, strong discontinuities, such as propagating cracks in concrete structures, joints in rocks or shear bands in soft soils, the highly accelerated moisture transport in the opening discontinuities has to be taken into account. The paper is concerned with an Extended Finite Element model for the numerical representation of crack propagation in partially saturated porous materials. Based on an extended variational formulation for the simulation of moisture transport in cracks, enhanced approximations of the displacement field and the moisture flux across the discontinuity are adopted. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Advanced Shell Element Formulations for Coupled Electromechanical Systems

With the significantly increasing applications of smart structures, piezoelectric material is widely used in branches of engineering sciences. Normally, the Finite Element Method is employed in the numerical analysis of these structures [2]. In this contribution, in order to avoid the locking effects and zero energy modes, the Assumed Natural Strain (ANS) Method [4] is implemented into four‐node piezoelectric shallow shell elements, by using the two‐field variational formulation in which displacements and electric potentials serve as independent variables and the three‐field variational formulation in which the dielectric displacement is taken as an independent variable additionally [3]. Moreover, a quadratic variation of the electric potential through the thickness direction is applied in the two‐field formulation. Numerical examples of piezoelectric sensors and actuators are presented, showing the behaviour of the shell elements by using different hybrid finite element formulations. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A crack model with delayed embedded discontinuities

In this contribution the combination of a smeared rotating crack model with a crack model based on the strong discontinuity approach and formulated within the framework of elements with embedded discontinuities is presented. This so–called crack model with delayed embedded discontinuities allows considering crack opening in the direction normal to the crack and relative tangential displacements of the crack faces with transfer of shear forces across the crack faces. The advantages of this approach are shown by the numerical simulation of an anchor pull out test. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Phase transition processes of pore fluids in porous materials

Taking a closer look on, e. g., storage processes of greenhouse gases in deep geological aquifers or pressure decreases in dilatant shear bands, the observation can be made that pressure and temperature changes in porous materials can induce phase transition processes of the respective pore fluids. For a numerical simulation of this behaviour, a continuum mechanical model based on a multiphasic formulation embedded in the well-founded framework of the Theory of Porous Media (TPM) is presented in this contribution. The single phases are an elasto-viscoplastic solid skeleton, a materially compressible pore gas consisting of the components air and gaseous pore water (water vapour) and a materially incompressible pore liquid, i. e., liquid pore water. The numerical treatment is based on the weak formulations of the governing equations, whereas the primary variables are the temperature of the mixture, the displacement of the solid skeleton and the effective pressures of the pore fluids. An initial boundary-value problem is discussed in detail, where the resulting system of strongly coupled differential-algebraic equations is solved by the FE tool PANDAS. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A solid shell finite element formulation to simulate the behaviour of thin dielectric elastomer structures

To analyse the behaviour of thin structures of dielectric elastomer (DE) material a solid shell finite element is presented. The main characteristics of DEs are a non-linear hyper elastic behaviour, the quasi-incompressibility, and the ability to transform electric energy into mechanical work. Applying a voltage to thin DE structures may produce large elongation strains of 120-380%. These large strains, the efficient electro-mechanical coupling, and the light weight make DEs very attractive for the usage in actuators. Thus, there is a need for detailed research. With respect to the electro-mechanical coupling a constitutive model is presented. An electric stress tensor and a total stress tensor are introduced by considering the electrical body force and couple in the balance of linear momentum and angular momentum, respectively. The governing equations are derived and embedded in the solid shell formulation. The element formulation is based on a Hu-Washizu mixed variational principle using six independent fields: displacements, electric potential, strains, electric field, mechanical stresses, and dielectric displacements. It allows large deformations and accounts for physical nonlinearities to capture two of the main characteristics of DEs. The shell element could be applied for the modelling of arbitrary curved thin structures. The ability of the present element formulation is demonstrated in several examples. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Variational formulation of the material failure process in solids by embedded discontinuities model

This work presents a variational formulation of the material failure process, idealized as strain or displacement discontinuities, by weak, strong, or discrete embedded discontinuities into a continuum. It is shown that the solution of the proposed variational formulation may be approximated by different types of finite elements with embedded discontinuities. The developed displacement approximation of a finite element split by the discontinuity leads to a symmetric stiffness matrix, which considers not only the continuity of tractions but also the rigid body relative motions of the portions in which the element is split. The variational formulation of a continuum with more than one discontinuity in its interior is developed. It is shown that this formulation may lead to finite elements with embedded discontinuities that can be classified as displacement, force, mixed, and hybrid models. To show the effectiveness of the proposed formulation, the classical example of a bar under tension is solved using one and 2D finite element approximations. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2009     

Follower loads for high order finite elements

Finite element modelling of hydrostatic compaction where the applied pressure acts normal to the deformed surface requires a geometric nonlinear formulation and follower load terms [1, 5, 7]. These concepts are applied to high order [6] (p-FEM) elements with hierarchic shape functions. Applying the blending function method allows to precisely describe curved boundaries on coarse meshes. High order elements exhibit good performance even for high aspect ratios and strong distortion and therefore allow an efficient discretization of thin-walled structures. Since high order finite elements are less prone to locking effects a pure displacement-based formulation can be chosen. After introducing the basic concept of the p-version the application of follower loads to geometrically nonlinear high order elements is presented. For the numerical solution the displacement based formulation is linearized yielding the basis for a Newton-Raphson iteration. The accuracy and performance of the high order finite element scheme is demonstrated by a numerical example. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Coupled fluid-solid thermal interaction modeling for efficient transient simulation of biphasic water-steam energy systems

This paper proposes a fluid-solid coupled finite element formulation for the transient simulation of water-steam energy systems with phase change due to boiling and condensation. As it is commonly assumed in the study of thermal systems, the transient effects considered are exclusively originated by heat transfer processes. A homogeneous mixture model is adopted for the analysis of biphasic flow, resulting in a nonlinear transient advection-diffusion-reaction energy equation and an integral form for mass conservation in the fluid, coupled to the linear transient heat conduction equation for the solid. The conservation equations are approximated applying a stabilized Petrov-Galerkin FEM formulation, providing a set of coupled nonlinear equations for mass and energy conservation. This numerical model, combined with experimental heat transfer coefficients, provides a comprehensive simulation tool for the coupled analysis of boiling and condensation processes. For the treatment of enthalpy discontinuities traveling with the flow, a novel explicit-implicit time integration method based on Crank-Nicolson scheme is proposed, analyzing its accuracy and stability properties. To reduce problem size and enhance numerical efficiency, a modal superposition method with balanced truncation is applied to the solid equations. Finally, different example problems are solved to demonstrate the capabilities, flexibility and accuracy of the proposed formulation.     

Application of the spherical metric tensor to grid adaptation and the solution of applied problems

New results concerning the construction and application of adaptive numerical grids for solving applied problems are presented. The grid generation technique is based on the numerical solution of inverted Beltrami and diffusion equations for a monitor metric. The capabilities of the spherical metric tensor as applied to adaptive grid generation are examined in detail. Adaptive hexahedral grids are used to numerically solve a boundary value problem for the three-dimensional heat equation with a moving boundary in a continuous medium with discontinuous thermophysical parameters; this problem models the interaction of a thermal wave with a thermocouple embedded in the solid.     

Epsilon-Trig Regularization Method for Bang-Bang Optimal Control Problems

Bang-bang control problems have numerical issues due to discontinuities in the control structure and require smoothing when using optimal control theory that relies on derivatives. Traditional smooth regularization introduces a small error into the original problem using error controls and an error parameter to enable the construction of accurate smoothed solutions. When path constraints are introduced into the problem, the traditional smooth regularization fails to bound the error controls involved. It also introduces a dimensional inconsistency related to the error parameter. Moreover, the traditional approach solves for the error controls separately, which makes the problem formulation complicated for a large number of error controls. The proposed Epsilon-Trig regularization method was developed to address these issues by using trigonometric functions to impose implicit bounds on the controls. The system of state equations is modified such that the smoothed control is expressed in sine form, and only one of the state equations contains an error control in cosine form. Since the Epsilon-Trig method has an error parameter only in one state equation, there is no dimensional inconsistency. Moreover, the Epsilon-Trig method only requires the solution to one control, which greatly simplifies the problem formulation. Its simplicity and improved capability over the traditional smooth regularization method for a wide variety of problems including the Goddard rocket problem have been discussed in this study.     

The use of Chebyshev Polynomials in the space-time least-squares spectral element method

Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind are employed in a space-time least-squares spectral element formulation applied to linear and nonlinear hyperbolic scalar equations. No stabilization techniques are required to render a stable, high order accurate scheme. In parts of the domain where the underlying exact solution is smooth, the scheme exhibits exponential convergence with polynomial enrichment, whereas in parts of the domain where the underlying exact solution contains discontinuities the solution displays a Gibbs-like behavior. An edge detection method is employed to determine the position of the discontinuity. Piecewise reconstruction of the numerical solution retrieves a monotone solution. Numerical results will be given in which the capabilities of the space-time formulation to capture discontinuities will be demonstrated.     

An adaptive wavelet space‐time SUPG method for hyperbolic conservation laws

This article concerns with incorporating wavelet bases into existing streamline upwind Petrov‐Galerkin (SUPG) methods for the numerical solution of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws which are known to develop shock solutions. Here, we utilize an SUPG formulation using continuous Galerkin in space and discontinuous Galerkin in time. The main motivation for such a combination is that these methods have good stability properties thanks to adding diffusion in the direction of streamlines. But they are more expensive than explicit semidiscrete methods as they have to use space‐time formulations. Using wavelet bases we maintain the stability properties of SUPG methods while we reduce the cost of these methods significantly through natural adaptivity of wavelet expansions. In addition, wavelet bases have a hierarchical structure. We use this property to numerically investigate the hierarchical addition of an artificial diffusion for further stabilization in spirit of spectral diffusion. Furthermore, we add the hierarchical diffusion only in the vicinity of discontinuities using the feature of wavelet bases in detection of location of discontinuities. Also, we again use the last feature of the wavelet bases to perform a postprocessing using a denosing technique based on a minimization formulation to reduce Gibbs oscillations near discontinuities while keeping other regions intact. Finally, we show the performance of the proposed combination through some numerical examples including Burgers’, transport, and wave equations as well as systems of shallow water equations.© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 2062–2089, 2017     

Detection of structural inconsistency in systems of equations with degrees of freedom and its applications

The concept of structural inconsistency in systems of equations is generalized to systems in which the number of equations is not necessarily equal to that of unknowns, and efficient algorithms for detecting it are established. Some examples are presented to show that the present method is not only useful for detecting errors in the formulation of large-scale systems but also useful for analyzing some essential properties of various kinds of engineering systems.