An adaptive GMsFEM for high-contrast flow problems

In this paper, we derive an a-posteriori error indicator for the Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Method (GMsFEM) framework. This error indicator is further used to develop an adaptive enrichment algorithm for the linear elliptic equation with multiscale high-contrast coefficients. The GMsFEM, which has recently been introduced in [12], allows solving multiscale parameter-dependent problems at a reduced computational cost by constructing a reduced-order representation of the solution on a coarse grid. The main idea of the method consists of (1) the construction of snapshot space, (2) the construction of the offline space, and (3) the construction of the online space (the latter for parameter-dependent problems). In [12], it was shown that the GMsFEM provides a flexible tool to solve multiscale problems with a complex input space by generating appropriate snapshot, offline, and online spaces. In this paper, we study an adaptive enrichment procedure and derive an a-posteriori error indicator which gives an estimate of the local error over coarse grid regions. We consider two kinds of error indicators where one is based on the $L^2$-norm of the local residual and the other is based on the weighted $H^{-1}$-norm of the local residual where the weight is related to the coefficient of the elliptic equation. We show that the use of weighted $H^{-1}$-norm residual gives a more robust error indicator which works well for cases with high contrast media. The convergence analysis of the method is given. In our analysis, we do not consider the error due to the fine-grid discretization of local problems and only study the errors due to the enrichment. Numerical results are presented that demonstrate the robustness of the proposed error indicators.Comment: 26 page

Asymptotic expansions for high-contrast elliptic equations

In this paper, we present a high-order expansion for elliptic equations in high-contrast media. The background conductivity is taken to be one and we assume the medium contains high (or low) conductivity inclusions. We derive an asymptotic expansion with respect to the contrast and provide a procedure to compute the terms in the expansion. The computation of the expansion does not depend on the contrast which is important for simulations. The latter allows avoiding increased mesh resolution around high conductivity features. This work is partly motivated by our earlier work in \cite{ge09_1} where we design efficient numerical procedures for solving high-contrast problems. These multiscale approaches require local solutions and our proposed high-order expansion can be used to approximate these local solutions inexpensively. In the case of a large-number of inclusions, the proposed analysis can help to design localization techniques for computing the terms in the expansion. In the paper, we present a rigorous analysis of the proposed high-order expansion and estimate the remainder of it. We consider both high and low conductivity inclusions

Adaptive multiscale model reduction with Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Methods

In this paper, we discuss a general multiscale model reduction framework based on multiscale finite element methods. We give a brief overview of related multiscale methods. Due to page limitations, the overview focuses on a few related methods and is not intended to be comprehensive. We present a general adaptive multiscale model reduction framework, the Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Method. Besides the method's basic outline, we discuss some important ingredients needed for the method's success. We also discuss several applications. The proposed method allows performing local model reduction in the presence of high contrast and no scale separation