A family of C1C^1 quadrilateral finite elements

We present a novel family of $C^1$ quadrilateral finite elements, which define global $C^1$ spaces over a general quadrilateral mesh with vertices of arbitrary valency. The elements extend the construction by (Brenner and Sung, J. Sci. Comput., 2005), which is based on polynomial elements of tensor-product degree $p\geq 6$, to all degrees $p \geq 3$. Thus, we call the family of $C^1$ finite elements Brenner-Sung quadrilaterals. The proposed $C^1$ quadrilateral can be seen as a special case of the Argyris isogeometric element of (Kapl, Sangalli and Takacs, CAGD, 2019). The quadrilateral elements possess similar degrees of freedom as the classical Argyris triangles. Just as for the Argyris triangle, we additionally impose $C^2$ continuity at the vertices. In this paper we focus on the lower degree cases, that may be desirable for their lower computational cost and better conditioning of the basis: We consider indeed the polynomial quadrilateral of (bi-)degree~$5$, and the polynomial degrees $p=3$ and $p=4$ by employing a splitting into $3\times3$ or $2\times2$ polynomial pieces, respectively. The proposed elements reproduce polynomials of total degree $p$. We show that the space provides optimal approximation order. Due to the interpolation properties, the error bounds are local on each element. In addition, we describe the construction of a simple, local basis and give for $p\in\{3,4,5\}$ explicit formulas for the B\'{e}zier or B-spline coefficients of the basis functions. Numerical experiments by solving the biharmonic equation demonstrate the potential of the proposed $C^1$ quadrilateral finite element for the numerical analysis of fourth order problems, also indicating that (for $p=5$) the proposed element performs comparable or in general even better than the Argyris triangle with respect to the number of degrees of freedom

Wave dispersion properties of compound finite elements

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Mixed finite elements use different approximation spaces for different dependent variables. Certain classes of mixed finite elements, called compatible finite elements, have been shown to exhibit a number of desirable properties for a numerical weather prediction model. In two-dimensions the lowest order element of the Raviart-Thomas based mixed element is the finite element equivalent of the widely used C-grid staggering, which is known to possess good wave dispersion properties, at least for quadrilateral grids. It has recently been proposed that building compound elements from a number of triangular Raviart-Thomas sub-elements, such that both the primal and (implied) dual grid are constructed from the same sub-elements, would allow greater flexibility in the use of different advection schemes along with the ability to build arbitrary polygonal elements. Although the wave dispersion properties of the triangular sub-elements are well understood, those of the compound elements are unknown. It would be useful to know how they compare with the non- compound elements and what properties of the triangular sub-grid elements are inherited? Here a numerical dispersion analysis is presented for the linear shallow water equations in two dimensions discretised using the lowest order compound Raviart-Thomas finite elements on regular quadrilateral and hexagonal grids. It is found that, in comparison with the well known C-grid scheme, the compound elements exhibit a more isotropic dispersion relation, with a small over estimation of the frequency for short waves compared with the relatively large underestimation for the C-grid. On a quadrilateral grid the compound elements are found to differ from the non- compound Raviart-Thomas quadrilateral elements even for uniform elements, exhibiting the influence of the underlying sub-elements. This is shown to lead to small improvements in the accuracy of the dispersion relation: the compound quadrilateral element is slightly better for gravity waves but slightly worse for inertial waves than the standard lowest order Raviart-Thomas element.The work of John Thuburn was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council under the 'Gung Ho' project (grant NE/1021136/1)

Stable finite element pair for Stokes problem and discrete Stokes complex on quadrilateral grids

In this paper, we first construct a nonconforming finite element pair for the incompressible Stokes problem on quadrilateral grids, and then construct a discrete Stokes complex associated with that finite element pair. The finite element spaces involved consist of piecewise polynomials only, and the divergence-free condition is imposed in a primal formulation. Combined with some existing results, these constructions can be generated onto grids that consist of both triangular and quadrilateral cells

Four- and eight-node hybrid-Trefftz quadrilateral finite element models for helmholtz problem

In this paper, four- and eight-node quadrilateral finite element models which can readily be incorporated into the standard finite element program framework are devised for plane Helmholtz problems. In these models, frame (boundary) and domain approximations are defined. The former is obtained by nodal interpolation and the latter is truncated from Trefftz solution sets. The equality of the two approximations are enforced along the element boundary. Both the Bessel and plane wave solutions are employed to construct the domain approximation. For full rankness, a minimal of four and eight domain modes are required for the four- and eight-node elements, respectively. By using local coordinates and directions, rank sufficient and invariant elements with minimal and close to minimal numbers of domain approximation modes are devised. In most tests, the proposed hybrid-Trefftz elements with the same number of nodes yield close solutions. In absolute majority of the tests, the proposed elements are considerably more accurate than their single-field counterparts. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.postprin

Stable cheapest nonconforming finite elements for the Stokes equations

We introduce two pairs of stable cheapest nonconforming finite element space pairs to approximate the Stokes equations. One pair has each component of its velocity field to be approximated by the $P_1$ nonconforming quadrilateral element while the pressure field is approximated by the piecewise constant function with globally two-dimensional subspaces removed: one removed space is due to the integral mean--zero property and the other space consists of global checker--board patterns. The other pair consists of the velocity space as the $P_1$ nonconforming quadrilateral element enriched by a globally one--dimensional macro bubble function space based on $DSSY$ (Douglas-Santos-Sheen-Ye) nonconforming finite element space; the pressure field is approximated by the piecewise constant function with mean--zero space eliminated. We show that two element pairs satisfy the discrete inf-sup condition uniformly. And we investigate the relationship between them. Several numerical examples are shown to confirm the efficiency and reliability of the proposed methods