An auxiliary space preconditioner for linear elasticity based on the generalized finite element method

We construct and analyze a preconditioner of the linear elasticity system discretized by conforming linear finite elements in the framework of the auxiliary space method. The auxiliary space preconditioner is based on two auxiliary spaces corresponding to discretizations of the scalar Poisson equation by linear finite elements and the generalized finite element method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preconditioners for higher order edge finite element discretizations of Maxwell's equations

In this paper,we are concerned with the fast solvers for higher order edge finite element discretizations of Maxwell's equations.We present the preconditioners for the first family and second family of higher order N′ed′elec element equations,respectively.By combining the stable decompositions of two kinds of edge finite element spaces with the abstract theory of auxiliary space preconditioning,we prove that the corresponding condition numbers of our preconditioners are uniformly bounded on quasi-uniform grids.We also present some numerical experiments to demonstrate the theoretical results.     

An efficient hierarchical preconditioner for quadratic discretizations of finite element problems

Higher order finite element discretizations, although providing higher accuracy, are considered to be computationally expensive and of limited use for large‐scale problems. In this paper, we have developed an efficient iterative solver for solving large‐scale quadratic finite element problems. The proposed approach shares some common features with geometric multigrid methods but does not need structured grids to create the coarse problem. This leads to a robust method applicable to finite element problems discretized by unstructured meshes such as those from adaptive remeshing strategies. The method is based on specific properties of hierarchical quadratic bases. It can be combined with an algebraic multigrid (AMG) preconditioner or with other algebraic multilevel block factorizations. The algorithm can be accelerated by flexible Krylov subspace methods. We present some numerical results on the convection–diffusion and linear elasticity problems to illustrate the efficiency and the robustness of the presented algorithm. In these experiments, the performance of the proposed method is compared with that of an AMG preconditioner and other iterative solvers. Our approach requires less computing time and less memory storage. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A geometric‐based algebraic multigrid method for higher‐order finite element equations in two‐dimensional linear elasticity

In this paper, we will discuss the geometric‐based algebraic multigrid (AMG) method for two‐dimensional linear elasticity problems discretized using quadratic and cubic elements. First, a two‐level method is proposed by analyzing the relationship between the linear finite element space and higher‐order finite element space. And then a geometric‐based AMG method is obtained with the existing solver used as a solver on the first coarse level. The resulting AMG method is applied to some typical elasticity problems including the plane strain problem with jumps in Young's modulus. The results of various numerical experiments show that the proposed AMG method is much more robust and efficient than a classical AMG solver that is applied directly to the high‐order systems alone. Moreover, we present the corresponding theoretical analysis for the convergence of the proposed AMG algorithms. These theoretical results are also confirmed by some numerical tests. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A robust optimal preconditioner for the mixed finite element discretization of elliptic optimal control problems

In this paper, we consider the efficient solving of the resulting algebraic system for elliptic optimal control problems with mixed finite element discretization. We propose a block‐diagonal preconditioner for the symmetric and indefinite algebraic system solved with minimum residual method, which is proved to be robust and optimal with respect to both the mesh size and the regularization parameter. The block‐diagonal preconditioner is constructed based on an isomorphism between appropriately chosen solution space and its dual for a general control problem with both state and gradient state observations in the objective functional. Numerical experiments confirm the efficiency of our proposed preconditioner.     

On parallel solution of linear elasticity problems. Part III: higher order finite elements

This is the third part of a trilogy on parallel solution of the linear elasticity problem. We consider the separate displacement ordering for a plain isotropic problem with full Dirichlet boundary conditions. The parallel solution methods presented in the first two parts of the trilogy are here generalised to higher order by using hierarchical finite elements. We discuss node numberings on regular grids for high degree of parallelism and even processor load as well as the problem of stability of the modified incomplete Cholesky factorisations used. Several preconditioning techniques for the conjugate gradient method are studied and compared for quadratic finite elements. Bounds for the condition numbers of the corresponding preconditioning methods are derived, and computer experiments are performed in order to confirm the theory and give recommendations on the choice of method. The parallel implementation is performed by message passing interface. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A mixed nonconforming finite element for linear elasticity

This article considers a mixed finite element method for linear elasticity. It is based on a modified mixed formulation that enforces the continuity of the stress weakly by adding a jump term of the approximated stress on interior edges. The symmetric stress are approximated by nonconforming linear elements and the displacement by piecewise constants. We establish ??(h) error bound in the (broken) L² norm for the divergence of the stress and ??(h) error bound in the L² norm for both the displacement and the stress tensor. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005.     

Comparison of multigrid algorithms for high‐order continuous finite element discretizations

We present a comparison of different multigrid approaches for the solution of systems arising from high‐order continuous finite element discretizations of elliptic partial differential equations on complex geometries. We consider the pointwise Jacobi, the Chebyshev‐accelerated Jacobi, and the symmetric successive over‐relaxation smoothers, as well as elementwise block Jacobi smoothing. Three approaches for the multigrid hierarchy are compared: (1) high‐order h‐multigrid, which uses high‐order interpolation and restriction between geometrically coarsened meshes; (2) p‐multigrid, in which the polynomial order is reduced while the mesh remains unchanged, and the interpolation and restriction incorporate the different‐order basis functions; and (3) a first‐order approximation multigrid preconditioner constructed using the nodes of the high‐order discretization. This latter approach is often combined with algebraic multigrid for the low‐order operator and is attractive for high‐order discretizations on unstructured meshes, where geometric coarsening is difficult. Based on a simple performance model, we compare the computational cost of the different approaches. Using scalar test problems in two and three dimensions with constant and varying coefficients, we compare the performance of the different multigrid approaches for polynomial orders up to 16. Overall, both h‐multigrid and p‐multigrid work well; the first‐order approximation is less efficient. For constant coefficients, all smoothers work well. For variable coefficients, Chebyshev and symmetric successive over‐relaxation smoothing outperform Jacobi smoothing. While all of the tested methods converge in a mesh‐independent number of iterations, none of them behaves completely independent of the polynomial order. When multigrid is used as a preconditioner in a Krylov method, the iteration number decreases significantly compared with using multigrid as a solver. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Refined mixed finite element method for the elasticity problem in a polygonal domain

The purpose of this article is to study a mixed formulation of the elasticity problem in plane polygonal domains and its numerical approximation. In this mixed formulation the strain tensor is introduced as a new unknown and its symmetry is relaxed by a Lagrange multiplier, which is nothing else than the rotation. Because of the corner points, the displacement field is not regular in general in the vicinity of the vertices but belongs to some weighted Sobolev space. Using this information, appropriate refinement rules are imposed on the family of triangulations in order to recapture optimal error estimates. Moreover, uniform error estimates in the Lamé coefficient λ are obtained for λ large. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 323–339, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/num.10009     

Mixed finite element methods for linear elasticity with weakly imposed symmetry

In this paper, we construct new finite element methods for the approximation of the equations of linear elasticity in three space dimensions that produce direct approximations to both stresses and displacements. The methods are based on a modified form of the Hellinger-Reissner variational principle that only weakly imposes the symmetry condition on the stresses. Although this approach has been previously used by a number of authors, a key new ingredient here is a constructive derivation of the elasticity complex starting from the de Rham complex. By mimicking this construction in the discrete case, we derive new mixed finite elements for elasticity in a systematic manner from known discretizations of the de Rham complex. These elements appear to be simpler than the ones previously derived. For example, we construct stable discretizations which use only piecewise linear elements to approximate the stress field and piecewise constant functions to approximate the displacement field.

     

A quadrilateral nonconforming finite element for linear elasticity problem

In this paper, a four-parameter quadrilateral nonconforming finite element with DSP (double set parameters) is presented. Then we discuss the quadrilateral nonconforming finite element approximation to the linear elastic equations with pure displacement boundary. The optimal convergence rate of the method is established in the broken energy and -norms, and in particular, the convergence is uniform with respect to the Lamé parameter . Also the performance of the scheme does not deteriorate as the material becomes nearly incompressible. Lastly, a numerical test is carried out, which coincides with our theoretical analysis. The research is supported by NSF of China (No. 10471133) and the project of Creative Engineering of Henan Province of China.     

A conforming auxiliary space preconditioner for the mass conserving stress-yielding method

We are studying the efficient solution of the system of linear equations stemming from the mass conserving stress-yielding (MCS) discretization of the Stokes equations. We perform static condensation to arrive at a system for the pressure and velocity unknowns. An auxiliary space preconditioner for the positive definite velocity block makes use of efficient and scalable solvers for conforming Finite Element spaces of low order and is analyzed with emphasis placed on robustness in the polynomial degree of the discretization. Numerical experiments demonstrate the potential of this approach and the efficiency of the implementation.     

Some remarks on the constant in the strengthened CBS inequality: Estimate for hierarchical finite element discretizations of elasticity problems

For a class of two‐dimensional boundary value problems including diffusion and elasticity problems, it is proved that the constants in the corresponding strengthened Cauchy‐Buniakowski‐Schwarz (CBS) inequality in the cases of two‐level hierarchical piecewise‐linear/piecewise‐linear and piecewise‐linear/piecewise‐quadratic finite element discretizations with triangular meshes differ by the factor 0.75. For plane linear elasticity problems and triangulations with right isosceles triangles, formulas are presented that show the dependence of the constant in the CBS inequality on the Poisson's ratio. Furthermore, numerically determined bounds of the constant in the CBS inequality are given for plane linear elasticity problems discretized by means of arbitrary triangles and for three‐dimensional elasticity problems discretized by means of tetrahedral elements. Finally, the robustness of iterative solvers for elasticity problems is discussed briefly. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 15: 469–487, 1999     

A discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for time dependent partial differential equations with higher order derivatives

In this paper, we develop a new discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method for solving time dependent partial differential equations (PDEs) with higher order spatial derivatives. Unlike the traditional local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method, the method in this paper can be applied without introducing any auxiliary variables or rewriting the original equation into a larger system. Stability is ensured by a careful choice of interface numerical fluxes. The method can be designed for quite general nonlinear PDEs and we prove stability and give error estimates for a few representative classes of PDEs up to fifth order. Numerical examples show that our scheme attains the optimal -th order of accuracy when using piecewise -th degree polynomials, under the condition that is greater than or equal to the order of the equation.

     

A two-stage least-squares finite element method for the stress-pressure-displacement elasticity equations

A new stress-pressure-displacement formulation for the planar elasticity equations is proposed by introducing the auxiliary variables, stresses, and pressure. The resulting first-order system involves a nonnegative parameter that measures the material compressibility for the elastic body. A two-stage least-squares finite element procedure is introduced for approximating the solution to this system with appropriate boundary conditions. It is shown that the two-stage least-squares scheme is stable and, with respect to the order of approximation for smooth exact solutions, the rates of convergence of the approximations for all the unknowns are optimal both in the H¹-norm and in the L²-norm. Numerical experiments with various values of the parameter are examined, which demonstrate the theoretical estimates. Among other things, computational results indicate that the behavior of convergence is uniform in the nonnegative parameter. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 14: 297–315, 1998     

A LOCKING-FREE ANISOTROPIC NONCONFORMING FINITE ELEMENT FOR PLANAR LINEAR ELASTICITY PROBLEM

The main aim of this article is to study the approximation of a locking-free anisotropic nonconforming finite element for the pure displacement boundary value prob-lem of planar linear elasticity. The optimal error estimates are obtained by using some novel approaches and techniques. The method proposed in this article is robust in the sense that the convergence estimates in the energy and L2-norms are independent of the Lame parameterλ.     

Hybridized weak Galerkin finite element method for linear elasticity problem in mixed form

A hybridization technique is applied to the weak Galerkin finite element method (WGFEM) for solving the linear elasticity problem in mixed form. An auxiliary function, the Lagrange multiplier defined on the boundary of elements, is introduced in this method. Consequently, the computational costs are much lower than the standard WGFEM. Optimal order error estimates are presented for the approximation scheme. Numerical results are provided to verify the theoretical results.     

A parallel solver for adaptive finite element discretizations

A parallel solver for the adaptive finite element analysis is presented. The primary aim of this work has been to establish an efficient parallel computational procedure which requires only local computations to update the solution of the system of equations arising from the finite element discretization after a local mesh-adaptation step. For this reason a set of algorithms has been developed (two-level domain decomposition, recursive hierarchical mesh-refinement, selective solution-update of linear systems of equations) which operate upon general and easily available partitioning, meshing and linear systems solving algorithms. AMS subject classification 15A23, 65N50, 65N60     

A family of higher order mixed finite element methods for plane elasticity

Summary The Dirichler problem for the equations of plane elasticity is approximated by a mixed finite element method using a new family of composite finite elements having properties analogous to those possessed by the Raviart-Thomas mixed finite elements for a scalar, second-order elliptic equation. Estimates of optimal order and minimal regularity are derived for the errors in the displacement vector and the stress tensor inL ²(), and optimal order negative norm estimates are obtained inH ^s () for a range ofs depending on the index of the finite element space. An optimal order estimate inL () for the displacement error is given. Also, a quasioptimal estimate is derived in an appropriate space. All estimates are valid uniformly with respect to the compressibility and apply in the incompressible case. The formulation of the elements is presented in detail.This work was performed while Professor Arnold was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow