Finite and boundary element approach to process simulation with conjugate gradient-based method

In this article, an application of a current sheet as a finite element in the boundary element method (BEM) is described. A detailed procedure for mathematical and software implementation of a current sheet element (CSE) as a finite boundary element (FBE) in BEM analysis is presented. For a simple generic magnetic circuit with a stator and a rotor, the calculated magnetic field and torque values are compared with the values obtained by two different finite-element method (FEM)-based simulation programs showing good agreement; however, elucidating the fact that even by employing professional FEM tools, on fairly simple problems, accurate determination of forces and torques is not necessarily guaranteed. Certain aspects of using the Maxwell stress tensor (MST) for the determination of forces and torques on the rotor domain are discussed. Since the primary magnetic field sources are currents in a set of conductors of the circular cross section, analytical expressions are used for the calculation of the primary field. Due to the selected geometry of the FBEs, i.e., CSEs, after a numerical determination of their currents by BEM, analytical expressions are employed for the calculation of FBE fields as well.

Controlling errors in the process of automating boundary element method analysis

A finite element–boundary element method for advection–diffusion problems with variable advective fields and infinite domains

O presente trabalho considera o uso do Método dos Elementos de Contorno (MEC) na avaliação da carga de colapso de problemas em estado plano de deformação, usando o teorema estático da análise-limite. Essa análise envolve o modelo constitutivo rígido-plástico, onde uma formulação não-linear do MEC faz-se necessária. Análises não-lineares com o MEC normalmente requerem o uso de uma discretização auxiliar no domínio através de células internas. Para evitar essa discretização de domínio, o presente desenvolvimento baseia-se em uma nova formulação não-linear do MEC, recentemente desenvolvida por Noronha e Pereira, usando apenas discretização de contorno (interfaces entre subregiões da zona plastificada). Os resultados obtidos pela discretização com a nova formulação do MEC são comparados com os obtidos pelo MEC convencional e pelo Método dos Elementos Finitos (MEF). A comparação entre os diferentes resultados é feita com os valores da função de escoamento e com o valor obtido para a carga de ruptura.

The computation of the acoustic scattering from objects in the ocean is useful to analyze the characteristics of the targets, which can be numerically modelled by acoustic boundary element method (BEM). The BEM has a defect of fictitious frequency problem, Burton-Miller method is studied to overcome the singular problems. In this paper, the Hadamard finite-part integral method based on collocation method is studied to overcome the singularity. It is found that, the near singularity is also quite significant and deteriorates largely the accuracy of BEM. A method based on polar transformation is proposed in this paper to overcome such a defect. Once the problems of singularity and near-singularity are solved, the conventional BEM model is established to serve as a foundation for fast BEM.It is well known that conventional BEM yields a full matrix, which is of O(N <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) memory complexity. Furthermore, the time complexity could be up to O(N <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> ), if Gaussian elimination method is adopted to solve the linear equation of BEM. Many fast methods are proposed to solve the problems, such as the GMRES iterative solver, fast multipole method and H-matrix (Hierarchical Matrices) method. H-matrix method is applied to overcome the faults of conventional BEM, by using the low-rank approximations to compress blocks of the matrix, which is a pure algebraic method. The ACA (Adaptive Cross Approximation) method is proposed to compute the outer-product form of low-rank matrices, instead of SVD (Singular Value Decomposition), which consumes high CPU time and is of no usability. ACA-BEM is used to predict the acoustic scattering from objects in the ocean, especially the large-scale problems. The directivities of a rigid sphere and a rigid ellipsoid are computed by ACA BEM, the time consumed is very short. For a problem of more than 20,000 DOFs, it can be solved within 2 minutes. Therefore, ACA BEM can be used to solve large-scale acoustic scattering problems very efficiently.

A Monte Carlo solution method for linear elasticity

SummaryThis paper presents a numerical approach for the design sensitivity analysis of modal frequencies of elastic structures submerged in an unbounded heavy fluid domain. Because the feedback of sound pressure onto the fluid‐loaded structures has to be taken into account in this case, a fully coupled scheme which combines the structural finite element method (FEM) and the acoustic boundary element method (BEM) is employed in the numerical simulation. The resulting nonlinear eigenvalue problem created by the coupled finite element and boundary element (FE‐BE) method is converted into a generalized eigenvalue problem (GEP) of reduced dimension by using a contour integral method. The design sensitivity formulation for non‐repeated eigenvalues is derived based on an adjoint method which uses both the left and right eigenvectors, and a small GEP is formed to calculate the gradients of repeated eigenvalues. The Burton‐Miller formulation is employed to shift the fictitious eigenfrequencies and their derivatives, and the parameter setting which is beneficial to the filtering of fictitious eigenfrequencies is investigated. Numerical examples are given to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the developed method.

In this paper an analysis is carried out to study the efficiency of heat distribution through fins using finite element method (FEM) and differential quadrature method ( DQM). Numerical solutions are obtained using both methods for temperature distribution over the fin surface. Analysis of surface solutions in terms of temperature and error distributions have been presented here. Solutions are also obtained using equally spaced (conventional) and non-equally spaced (optimum) mesh (nodal points) distribution techniques. Two-dimensional heat conduction problem has been solved in both equal and non-equal nodal points distribution cases (called here conventional FEM (CFEM) and conventional DQM (CDQM) and optimum FEM (OFEM) and optimum DQM (ODQM)). The obtained results are compared and investigated with exact results. The best results are found in OFEM solutions. It is also found that, ODQM solutions reach very close to OFEM solutions with negligible error, whereas CFEM and CDQM solutions diverges with increasing number of nodal(mesh) points.

This paper presents a symmetric coupling between the finite element and boundary element methods for analysing open microwave devices. The proposed finite element boundary element (FEBE) method is based on the E-field vector Helmholtz equation. Second-order hierarchical Curl-conforming vector finite elements over tetrahedrons are used to discretize the interior region. The boundary element (BE) truncation surface is discretized with the second-order divergence-conforming surface elements with triangular support. The symmetry of the BE part is restored through the application of the Calderon-projector. Moreover, the BE computations are accelerated using a single level QR algorithm. This reduces both memory and computational time. The resulted symmetric system of equations is solved with a very efficient preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCCG) method with a p-multiplicative Schwarz (pMUS) preconditioner. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this paper, a coupled model based on finite element method (FEM), boundary element method (BEM) and scaled boundary FEM (SBFEM) (also referred to as the consistent infinitesimal finite element cell method) for dynamic response of 2D structures resting on layered soil media is presented. The SBFEM proposed by Wolf and Song (Finite-element Modelling of Unbounded Media. Wiley: England, 1996) and BEM are used for modelling the dynamic response of the unbounded media (far-field). The standard FEM is used for modelling the finite region (near-field) and the structure. In SBFEM, which is a semi-analytical technique, the radiation condition at infinity is satisfied exactly without requiring the fundamental solution. This method, also eliminates the need for the discretization of interfaces between different layers. In both SBFEM and BEM, the spatial dimension is decreased by one. The objective of the development of this coupled model is to combine advantages of above-mentioned three numerical models to solve various soil-structure interaction (SSI) problems efficiently and effectively. These three methods are coupled (FE-BE-SBFEM) via substructuring method, and a computer programme is developed for the harmonic analyses of SSI systems. The coupled model is established in such a way that, depending upon the problem and far-field properties, one can choose BEM and/or SBFEM in modelling related far-field region(s). Thus, BEM and/or SBFEM can be used efficiently in modelling the far-field. The proposed model is applied to investigate dynamic response of rigid and elastic structures resting on layered soil media. To assess the proposed SSI model, several problems existing in the literature are chosen and analysed. The results of the proposed model agree with the results presented in the literature for the chosen problems. The advantages of the model are demonstrated through these comparisons.

It is common knowledge that conventional finite element method (FEM) has intrinsic limitations in analyzing large deformation problems like high-velocity impact, explosion, etc. because of mesh distortion and tangling; while these problems can be easily avoided by the meshfree method (MM), the latter involves greater computation time. Therefore, in this article, in order to simultaneously utilize the respective advantages of the two methods, a coupled simulation method between both FEM and MM was employed to analyze the high-velocity impact on ductile metal pipe with polymer coating. The impacted area with large deformation was discretized by SPH (smoothed particle hydrodynamics) particles, a classic meshfree model, and the remaining section was modeled by FEM meshes. By this method, the interfacial shear stresses between the coating and the substrate and the residual stresses beneath the contact points were studied, which would have referenced values in analyzing failure modes of components with similar composite structure. Then, the results were compared with sole FEM and MM too.

The use of modal methods to determine acoustic transient and harmonic radiation and scattering from fluid loaded shells of revolution will be reviewed. Using such methods the velocity field of a fluid loaded shell is first expressed as an invacuo modal vector expansion where the modes are determined either analytically for simple structures or via finite element methods for more complex structures. Boundary element or other methods are subsequently used to evaluate mode-dependent acoustic radiation impedances and impulse responses which account for the coupling of the fluid. In contrast to the harmonic problem which results in sets of algebraic equations for the coefficients of the modal expansion, the transient problem results in sets of coupled time-dependent convolution integral equations for the time-dependent coefficients. Our experience in solving both two- and three-dimensional radiation and scattering problems using modal methods will be reviewed. Numerical results for a wide variety of two- and three-dimensional radiation and scattering problems will be presented. In particular results will be presented and discussed for cylindrical, spherical, and spheroidal shells.

Finite element method (FEM) is widely used in the modeling of electromagnetic systems and as a reliable method to verify analytical modeling of electromagnetic devices in design step. As the method is based on discretization of domains, the electromagnetic continuity conditions at the boundaries of elements should be confirmed. Electromagnetic continuity conditions in FEM modeling were investigated in this article. It was shown that the continuity of tangential component of magnetic field intensity is not guaranteed at the boundaries of elements. The inability of FEM to establish the continuity condition leads to some virtual surface current densities at the boundaries of adjacent elements which does not exist in reality. The existence of virtual surface currents is proved in an example. Then, with the help of a complicated example, it is shown that large number of elements and, consequently, the large number of boundaries between elements may cause great errors in FEM postprocess results, especially in calculating magnetic stored energy and electromagnetic forces acting on moving parts. It has been shown that it is very important to take into account the impact of these virtual current densities in energy conversion analysis by FEM.

Finite element and boundary element contact stress analysis with remeshing technique

A nodeless variable element is combined with an adaptive meshing technique to improve solution accuracy of the finite element method for analyzing two-dimensional elasticity problems. The nodeless variable element employs quadratic interpolation functions to provide higher solution accuracy without requiring additional actual nodes. The fluxbased formulation is developed for the nodeless variable finite element to reduce the complexity in deriving the finite element equations as compared to the conventional finite element method. The superconvergent patch recovery procedure is implemented to compute accurate stresses from the nodeless variable finite element solutions. The effectiveness of the combined procedure for providing higher solution convergence rate from the proposed formulation is evaluated by two well-known examples.