A subspace correction method for discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of linear elasticity equations

We study preconditioning techniques for discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of isotropic linear elasticity problems in primal (displacement) formulation. We propose subspace correction methods based on a splitting of the vector valued piecewise linear discontinuous finite element space, that are optimal with respect to the mesh size and the Lamé parameters. The pure displacement, the mixed and the traction free problems are discussed in detail. We present a convergence analysis of the proposed preconditioners and include numerical examples that validate the theory and assess the performance of the preconditioners

A Parallel Algebraic Multigrid Method for Elliptic Problems with Highly Discontinuous Coefficients

The aim of this thesis is the development of a parallel algebraic multigrid method suitable for solving linear systems arising from the discretization of scalar and systems of partial differential equations. Among others it is suitable from conforming finite element methods, finite volume methods, and discontinuous Galerkin methods. The method is especially tailored for the solution of diffusion problems with highly oscillating and discon- tinuous diffusion coefficients. The presented approach uses a new strength of connection measure for guiding the construction of the coarse level matrices. It uses a heuristic greedy aggregation algorithm that allows for aggressive coarsening. It is able to detect weak connections in the matrix graph even for anisotropic diffusion with bi- and trilinear finite elements and thus leads to semi- coarsening even for these cases. At the same time it keeps the stencil size from the finer levels and thus the total operator complexity low even for three dimensional problems. This leads to a very low memory consump- tion of our solver compared with other methods. We develop extensions of the solver to systems of partial differential equation by using special blocking approaches of the unknowns. These blockings are emulated by the underlying matrix and vector data struc- tures. As the blocking is already available to the compiler, it can be exploited to produce automatically more efficient code. For the solution of the linear systems stemming from Discontinuous Galerkin discretizations, we employ the subspace of continuous linear basis function as the space associated with the first coarse level. The further coarsening is done by using the above algorithm. For the method of Baumann and Oden we need to use overlapping Schwarz methods as smoothers to get a convergent method. Their local subspaces are con- structed using our aggregation algorithm on the blocks consisting of all unknowns associated with each element. Finally we present a parallelisation approach for iterative solvers and use it to parallelise our algebraic multigrid method. In our approach the information about the data decomposition is kept apart from the linear al- gebra solvers and data structures. It is used to keep the data stored in the local memory of the process consistent. Using our proposed consistency model, the efficient sequential linear algebra solvers and data structures can be reused without the need to rewrite the actual solver algorithms

Convergence in the incompressible limit of new discontinuous Galerkin methods with general quadrilateral and hexahedral elements

Standard low-order finite elements, which perform well for problems involving compressible elastic materials, are known to under-perform when nearly incompressible materials are involved, commonly exhibiting the locking phenomenon. Interior penalty (IP) discontinuous Galerkin methods have been shown to circumvent locking when simplicial elements are used. The same IP methods, however, result in locking on meshes of quadrilaterals. The authors have shown in earlier work that under-integration of specified terms in the IP formulation eliminates the locking problem for rectangular elements. Here it is demonstrated through an extensive numerical investigation that the effect of using under-integration carries over successfully to meshes of more general quadrilateral elements, as would likely be used in practical applications, and results in accurate displacement approximations. Uniform convergence with respect to the compressibility parameter is shown numerically. Additionally, a stress approximation obtained here by postprocessing shows good convergence in the incompressible limit

Adaptive Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Variational Inequalities with Applications to Phase Field Models

Solutions of variational inequalities often have limited regularity. In particular, the nonsmooth parts are local, while other parts of the solution have higher regularity. To overcome this limitation, we apply hp-adaptivity, which uses a combination of locally finer meshes and varying polynomial degrees to separate the different features of the the solution. For this, we employ Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and show some novel error estimates for the obstacle problem which emphasize the use in hp-adaptive algorithms. Besides this analysis, we present how to efficiently compute numerical solutions using error estimators, fast algebraic solvers which can also be employed in a parallel setup, and discuss implementation details. Finally, some numerical examples and applications to phase field models are presented

Schnelle Löser für partielle Differentialgleichungen

The workshop Schnelle Löser für partielle Differentialgleichungen, organised by Randolph E. Bank (La Jolla), Wolfgang Hackbusch(Leipzig), Gabriel Wittum (Heidelberg) was held May 22nd - May 28th, 2005. This meeting was well attended by 47 participants with broad geographic representation from 9 countries and 3 continents. This workshop was a nice blend of researchers with various backgrounds

Discontinuous Galerkin Method Applied to Navier-Stokes Equations

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element methods are becoming important techniques for the computational solution of many real-world problems describe by differential equations. They combine many attractive features of the finite element and the finite volume methods. These methods have been successfully applied to many important PDEs arising from a wide range of applications. DG methods are highly accurate numerical methods and have considerable advantages over the classical numerical methods available in the literature. DG methods can easily handle meshes with hanging nodes, elements of various types and shapes, and local spaces of different orders. Furthermore, DG methods provide accurate and efficient simulation of physical and engineering problems, especially in settings where the solutions exhibit poor regularity. For these reasons, they have attracted the attention of many researchers working in diverse areas, from computational fluid dynamics, solid mechanics and optimal control, to finance, biology and geology. In this talk, we give an overview of the main features of DG methods and their extensions. We first introduce the DG method for solving classical differential equations. Then, we extend the methods to other equations such as Navier-Stokes equations. The Navier-Stokes equations are useful because they describe the physics of many phenomena of scientific and engineering interest. They may be used to model the weather, ocean currents, water flow in a pipe and air flow around a wing

A high-order, adaptive, discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-182).This thesis presents high-order, discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretizations of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and an output-based error estimation and mesh adaptation algorithm for these discretizations. In particular, DG discretizations of the RANS equations with the Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model are examined. The dual consistency of multiple DG discretizations of the RANS-SA system is analyzed. The approach of simply weighting gradient dependent source terms by a test function and integrating is shown to be dual inconsistent. A dual consistency correction for this discretization is derived. The analysis also demonstrates that discretizations based on the popular mixed formulation, where dependence on the state gradient is handled by introducing additional state variables, are generally asymptotically dual consistent. Numerical results are presented to confirm the results of the analysis. The output error estimation and output-based adaptation algorithms used here are extensions of methods previously developed in the finite volume and finite element communities. In particular, the methods are extended for application on the curved, highly anisotropic meshes required for boundary conforming, high-order RANS simulations. Two methods for generating such curved meshes are demonstrated. One relies on a user-defined global mapping of the physical domain to a straight meshing domain. The other uses a linear elasticity node movement scheme to add curvature to an initially linear mesh. Finally, to improve the robustness of the adaptation process, an "unsteady" algorithm, where the mesh is adapted at each time step, is presented. The goal of the unsteady procedure is to allow mesh adaptation prior to converging a steady state solution, not to obtain a time-accurate solution of an unsteady problem. Thus, an estimate of the error due to spatial discretization in the output of interest averaged over the current time step is developed. This error estimate is then used to drive an h-adaptation algorithm. Adaptation results demonstrate that the high-order discretizations are more efficient than the second-order method in terms of degrees of freedom required to achieve a desired error tolerance. Furthermore, using the unsteady adaptation process, adaptive RANS simulations may be started from extremely coarse meshes, significantly decreasing the mesh generation burden to the user.by Todd A. Oliver.Ph.D