Convergence of a monotonisation procedure for a non-monotone quasi-static model in poroplasticity

Existence theory to quasi-static initial-boundary value problem of poroplasticity is studied. The classical quasi-static Biot model for soil consolidation coupled with a nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations is considered. This article presents a convergence result for the coercive and monotone approximations to solution of the original non-coercive and non-monotone problem of poroplasticity such that the inelastic constitutive equation is satisfied in the sense of Young measures.     

On the (in)stability of quasi‐static paths of smooth systems: definitions and sufficient conditions

A concept of stability of quasi‐static paths is discussed in this paper that takes into account the existence of fast (dynamic) and slow (quasi‐static) time scales in the evolution of many mechanical systems. The proposed concept is essentially a continuity property with respect to the smallness of the initial perturbations (as in Lyapunov stability) and the smallness of the quasi‐static loading rate (that plays the role of the small parameter in singular perturbation problems). A related concept of attractiveness is also proposed. Several examples illustrate the relevance of the definitions. Sufficient conditions for attractiveness or for instability of quasi‐static paths of smooth systems are proved. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Single‐phase flow in composite poroelastic media

The mathematical formulation and analysis of the Barenblatt–Biot model of elastic deformation and laminar flow in a heterogeneous porous medium is discussed. This describes consolidation processes in a fluid‐saturated double‐diffusion model of fractured rock. The model includes various degenerate cases, such as incompressible constituents or totally fissured components, and it is extended to include boundary conditions arising from partially exposed pores. The quasi‐static initial–boundary problem is shown to have a unique weak solution, and this solution is strong when the data are smoother. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Existence and convergence for quasi‐static evolution in brittle fracture

This paper investigates the mathematical well‐posedness of the variational model of quasi‐static growth for a brittle crack proposed by Francfort and Marigo in [15]. The starting point is a time discretized version of that evolution which results in a sequence of minimization problems of Mumford and Shah type functionals. The natural weak setting is that of special functions of bounded variation, and the main difficulty in showing existence of the time‐continuous quasi‐static growth is to pass to the limit as the time‐discretization step tends to 0. This is performed with the help of a jump transfer theorem which permits, under weak convergence assumptions for a sequence {u_n} of SBV‐functions to its BV‐limit u, to transfer the part of the jump set of any test field that lies in the jump set of u onto that of the converging sequence {u_n}. In particular, it is shown that the notion of minimizer of a Mumford and Shah type functional for its own jump set is stable under weak convergence assumptions. Furthermore, our analysis justifies numerical methods used for computing the time‐continuous quasi‐static evolution. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Diffusion in poro‐plastic media

A model is developed for the flow of a slightly compressible fluid through a saturated inelastic porous medium. The initial‐boundary‐value problem is a system that consists of the diffusion equation for the fluid coupled to the momentum equation for the porous solid together with a constitutive law which includes a possibly hysteretic relation of elasto‐visco‐plastic type. The variational form of this problem in Hilbert space is a non‐linear evolution equation for which the existence and uniqueness of a global strong solution is proved by means of monotonicity methods. Various degenerate situations are permitted, such as incompressible fluid, negligible porosity, or a quasi‐static momentum equation. The essential sufficient conditions for the well‐posedness of the system consist of an ellipticity condition on the term for diffusion of fluid and either a viscous or a hardening assumption in the constitutive relation for the porous solid. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shape sensitivity of a plane crack front

The 3D‐elasticity model of a solid with a plane crack under the stress‐free boundary conditions at the crack is considered. We investigate variations of a solution and of energy functionals with respect to perturbations of the crack front in the plane. The corresponding expansions at least up to the second‐order terms are obtained. The strong derivatives of the solution are constructed as an iterative solution of the same elasticity problem with specified right‐hand sides. Using the expansion of the potential and surface energy, we consider an approximate quadratic form for local shape optimization of the crack front defined by the Griffith criterion. To specify its properties, a procedure of discrete optimization is proposed, which reduces to a matrix variational inequality. At least for a small load we prove its solvability and find a quasi‐static model of the crack growth depending on the loading parameter. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A quasi‐static boundary value problem in multi‐surface elastoplasticity: Part 1—Analysis

The quasi‐static evolution of an elastoplastic body with a multi‐surface constitutive law of linear kinematic hardening type allows the modelling of curved stress–strain relations. It generalizes classical small‐strain elastoplasticity from one to various plastic phases. This paper presents the mathematical models and proves existence and uniqueness of the solution of the corresponding initial‐boundary value problem. The analysis involves an explicit estimate for the effective ellipticity constant. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical analysis of a contact problem between two thermoviscoelastic beams

We propose and analyze in this article a finite element approximation, based on a penalty formulation, to a quasi‐static unilateral contact problem between two thermoviscoelastic beams. An error bound is given and some numerical experiments discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 27: 644–661, 2011     

A singularly perturbed problem of photon transport in a time‐dependent region

The paper is devoted to the numerical study of a singularly perturbed transport linear integro‐differential equation, in a time‐dependent domain with slab geometry. After a brief summary on existence and uniqueness results for such a model, we test the error between the exact solution and its quasi‐static approximation, which satisfies a simpler equation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Epsilon‐stable quasi‐static brittle fracture evolution

We introduce a new definition of stability, ε‐stability, that implies local minimality and is robust enough for passing from discrete‐time to continuous‐time quasi‐static evolutions, even with very irregular energies. We use this to give the first existence result for quasi‐static crack evolutions that both predicts crack paths and produces states that are local minimizers at every time, but not necessarily global minimizers. The key ingredient in our model is the physically reasonable property, absent in global minimization models, that whenever there is a jump in time from one state to another, there must be a continuous path from the earlier state to the later along which the energy is almost decreasing. It follows that these evolutions are much closer to satisfying Griffith's criterion for crack growth than are solutions based on global minimization, and initiation is more physical than in global minimization models. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Convergence of the mixed finite element method for Maxwell's equations with nonlinear conductivity

In this paper, we study a numerical scheme to solve coupled Maxwell's equations with a nonlinear conductivity. This model plays an important role in the study of type‐II superconductors. The approximation scheme is based on backward Euler discretization in time and mixed conforming finite elements in space. We will prove convergence of this scheme to the unique weak solution of the problem and develop the corresponding error estimates. As a next step, we study the stability of the scheme in the quasi‐static limit ? → 0 and present the corresponding convergence rate. Finally, we support the theory by several numerical experiments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thermo‐visco‐elasticity for Norton‐Hoff‐type models with Cosserat effects

We consider the quasi‐static evolution of thermo‐visco‐elastic material. The main goal of this paper is to present how taking into account the additional effects may improve the result of solutions' existence. We added a micropolarity effect to thermo‐visco‐elastic model regarding Norton‐Hoff‐type constitutive function. This additional phenomenon improves the regularity of solution. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Partitioned penalty methods for the transport equation in the evolutionary Stokes–Darcy‐transport problem

There has been a surge of work on models for coupling surface‐water with groundwater flows which is at its core the Stokes–Darcy problem, as well as methods for uncoupling the problem into subdomain, subphysics solves. The resulting (Stokes–Darcy) fluid velocity is important because the flow transports contaminants. The numerical analysis and algorithm development for the evolutionary transport problem has, however, focused on a quasi‐static Stokes–Darcy model and a single domain (fully coupled) formulation of the transport equation. This report presents a numerical analysis of a partitioned method for contaminant transport for the fully evolutionary system. The algorithm studied is unconditionally stable with one subdomain solve per step. Numerical experiments are given using the proposed algorithm that investigates the effects of the penalty parameters on the convergence of the approximations.     

The scattering of plane elastic waves by a one‐dimensional periodic surface

The two‐dimensional scattering problem for time‐harmonic plane waves in an isotropic elastic medium and an effectively infinite periodic surface is considered. A radiation condition for quasi‐periodic solutions similar to the condition utilized in the scattering of acoustic waves by one‐dimensional diffraction gratings is proposed. Under this condition, uniqueness of solution to the first and third boundary‐value problems is established. We then proceed by introducing a quasi‐periodic free field matrix of fundamental solutions for the Navier equation. The solution to the first boundary‐value problem is sought as a superposition of single‐ and double‐layer potentials defined utilizing this quasi‐periodic matrix. Existence of solution is established by showing the equivalence of the problem to a uniquely solvable second kind Fredholm integral equation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Web‐spline‐based finite element approximation of some quasi‐newtonian flows: Existence‐uniqueness and error bound

This article deals with the web‐spline‐based finite element approximation of quasi‐Newtonian flows. First, we consider the scalar elliptic p‐Laplace problem. Then, we consider quasi‐Newtonian flows where viscosity obeys power law or Carreau law. We prove well‐posedness at the continuous as well as the discrete level. We give some error bounds for the solution of quasi‐Newtonian flow problem based on the web‐spline method. Finally, we provide the numerical results for the p‐Laplace problem. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq31: 54–77, 2015     

On the evolution of sharp fronts for the quasi‐geostrophic equation

We consider the problem of the evolution of sharp fronts for the surface quasi‐geostrophic (QG) equation. This problem is the analogue to the vortex patch problem for the two‐dimensional Euler equation. The special interest of the quasi‐geostrophic equation lies in its strong similarities with the three‐dimensional Euler equation, while being a two‐dimen‐sional model. In particular, an analogue of the problem considered here, the evolution of sharp fronts for QG, is the evolution of a vortex line for the three‐dimensional Euler equation. The rigorous derivation of an equation for the evolution of a vortex line is still an open problem. The influence of the singularity appearing in the velocity when using the Biot‐Savart law still needs to be understood. We present two derivations for the evolution of a periodic sharp front. The first one, heuristic, shows the presence of a logarithmic singularity in the velocity, while the second, making use of weak solutions, obtains a rigorous equation for the evolution explaining the influence of that term in the evolution of the curve. Finally, using a Nash‐Moser argument as the main tool, we obtain local existence and uniqueness of a solution for the derived equation in the C^∞ case. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Action functional and quasi‐potential for the burgers equation in a bounded interval

Consider the viscous Burgers equation u_t + f(u)_x = εu_xx on the interval [0,1] with the inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions u(t,0) = ρ₀, u(t,1) = ρ₁. The flux f is the function f(u) = u(1 − u), ε > 0 is the viscosity, and the boundary data satisfy 0 < ρ₀ < ρ₁ < 1. We examine the quasi‐potential corresponding to an action functional arising from nonequilibrium statistical mechanical models associated with the above equation. We provide a static variational formula for the quasi‐potential and characterize the optimal paths for the dynamical problem. In contrast with previous cases, for small enough viscosity, the variational problem defining the quasi‐potential admits more than one minimizer. This phenomenon is interpreted as a nonequilibrium phase transition and corresponds to points where the superdifferential of the quasi‐potential is not a singleton. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Mixed formulation of the two‐layer quasi‐geostrophic equations of the ocean

In this article, we propose a mixed variational formulation for the streamfunction vorticity potential form for the two‐layer quasi‐geostrophic model of the ocean. We prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions of the mixed variational problem. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 15: 489–502, 1999     

The hp‐version of the BEM with quasi‐uniform meshes for a three‐dimensional crack problem: The case of a smooth crack having smooth boundary curve

The article considers a three‐dimensional crack problem in linear elasticity with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The crack in this model problem is assumed to be a smooth open surface with smooth boundary curve. The hp‐version of the boundary element method with weakly singular operator is applied to approximate the unknown jump of the traction which is not L₂‐regular due to strong edge singularities. Assuming quasi‐uniform meshes and uniform distributions of polynomial degrees, we prove an a priori error estimate in the energy norm. The estimate gives an upper bound for the error in terms of the mesh size h and the polynomial degree p. It is optimal in h for any given data and quasi‐optimal in p for sufficiently smooth data. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008