Computational modelling of some problems of elasticity and viscoelasticity with applications to thermoforming process

Copyright @ 2012 Northwestern Polytechnical University and ISCIThe reliability of computational models of physical processes has received much attention and involves issues such as the validity of the mathematical models being used, the error in any data that the models need, and the accuracy of the numerical schemes being used. These issues are considered in the context of elastic, viscoelastic and hyperelastic deformation, when finite element approximations are applied. Goal oriented techniques using specific quantities of interest (QoI) are described for estimating discretisation and modelling errors in the hyperelastic case. The computational modelling of the rapid large inflation of hyperelastic circular sheets modelled as axisymmetric membranes is then treated, with the aim of estimating engineering QoI and their errors. Fine (involving inertia terms) and coarse (quasi-static) models of the inflation are considered. The techniques are applied to thermoforming processes where sheets are inflated into moulds to form thin-walled structures

Finite element approximation of Maxwell’s equations with Debye memory

Copyright © 2010 Simon Shaw. All rights reserved.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Maxwell’s equations in a bounded Debye medium are formulated in terms of the standard partial differential equations of electromagnetism with a Volterra-type history dependence of the polarization on the electric field intensity. This leads to Maxwell’s equations with memory. We make a correspondence between this type of constitutive law and the hereditary integral constitutive laws from linear viscoelasticity, and are then able to apply known results from viscoelasticity theory to this Maxwell system. In particular we can show long-time stability by shunning Gronwall’s lemma and estimating the history kernels more carefully by appeal to the underlying physical fading memory. We also give a fully discrete scheme for the electric field wave equation and derive stability bounds which are exactly analagous to those for the continuous problem, thus providing a foundation for long-time numerical integration. We finish by also providing error bounds for which the constant grows, at worst, linearly in time (excluding the time dependence in the norms of the exact solution). Although the first (mixed) finite element error analysis for the Debye problem was given by Jichun Li (in Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Eng., 196, (2007), pp. 3081–3094) this seems to be the the first time sharp constants have been given for this problem.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

High-order space-time finite element schemes for acoustic and viscodynamic wave equations with temporal decoupling

Copyright @ 2014 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.We revisit a method originally introduced by Werder et al. (in Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., 190:6685–6708, 2001) for temporally discontinuous Galerkin FEMs applied to a parabolic partial differential equation. In that approach, block systems arise because of the coupling of the spatial systems through inner products of the temporal basis functions. If the spatial finite element space is of dimension D and polynomials of degree r are used in time, the block system has dimension (r + 1)D and is usually regarded as being too large when r > 1. Werder et al. found that the space-time coupling matrices are diagonalizable over inline image for r ⩽100, and this means that the time-coupled computations within a time step can actually be decoupled. By using either continuous Galerkin or spectral element methods in space, we apply this DG-in-time methodology, for the first time, to second-order wave equations including elastodynamics with and without Kelvin–Voigt and Maxwell–Zener viscoelasticity. An example set of numerical results is given to demonstrate the favourable effect on error and computational work of the moderately high-order (up to degree 7) temporal and spatio-temporal approximations, and we also touch on an application of this method to an ambitious problem related to the diagnosis of coronary artery disease

Adaptive finite elements for viscoelastic deformation problems

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is concerned with the theoretical and computational aspects of generating solutions to problems involving materials with fading memory, known as viscoelastic materials. Viscoelastic materials can be loosely described as those whose current stress configuration depends on their recent past. Viscoelastic constitutive laws for stress typically take the form of a sum of an instantaneous response term and an integral over their past responses. Such laws are called hereditary integral constitutive laws. The main purpose of this study is to analyse adaptive finite element algorithms for the numerical solution of the quasistatic equations governing the small displacement of a viscoelastic body subjected to prescribed body forces and tractions. Such algorithms for the hereditary integral formulation have appeared in the literature. However the approach here is to consider an equivalent formulation based on the introduction of a set of unobservable interval variables. In the linear viscoelastic case we exploit the structure of the quasistatic problem to remove the displacement from the equations governing the internal variables. This results in an elliptic problem with right hand side dependent on the internal variables, and a separate independent system of ordinary differential equations in a Hilbert space. We consider a continuous in space and time Galerkin finite element approximation to the reformulated problem for which we derive optimal order a priori error estimates. We then apply the techniques of the theory of adaptive finite element methods for elliptic boundary value problems and ordinary differential equations, deriving reliable and efficient a posteriori error estimates and detailing adaptive algorithms. We consider the idea of splitting the error into space and time portions and present results regarding a splitting for space time projections. The ideas for splitting the error in projections is applied to the finite element approximation and a further set of a posteriori error estimates derived. Numerical studies confirm the theoretical properties of all of the estimators and we show how they can be used to drive adaptive in space and time solution algorithms. We consider the extension of our results for the linear case to the constitutively nonlinear case. A model problem is formulated and the general techniques for dealing with a posterior error estimation for nonlinear space time problems are considered.EPSRC; Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science(JSPS

Mixed and galerkin finite element approximation of flow in a linear viscoelastic porous medium

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2013 ElsevierThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.We propose two fully discrete mixed and Galerkin finite element approximations to a system of equations describing the slow flow of a slightly compressible single phase fluid in a viscoelastic porous medium. One of our schemes is the natural one for the backward Euler time discretization but, due to the viscoelasticity, seems to be stable only for small enough time steps. The other scheme contains a lagged term in the viscous stress and pressure evolution equations and this is enough to prove unconditional stability. For this lagged scheme we prove an optimal order a priori error estimate under ideal regularity assumptions and demonstrate the convergence rates by using a model problem with a manufactured solution. The model and numerical scheme that we present are a natural extension to ‘poroviscoelasticity’ of the poroelasticity equations and scheme studied by Philips and Wheeler in (for example) [Philip Joseph Philips, Mary F.Wheeler, Comput. Geosci. 11 (2007) 145–158] although — importantly — their algorithms and codes would need only minor modifications in order to include the viscous effects. The equations and algorithms presented here have application to oil reservoir simulations and also to the condition of hydrocephalus — ‘water on the brain’. An illustrative example is given demonstrating that even small viscoelastic effects can produce noticeable differences in long-time response. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time a mixed and Galerkin scheme has been analysed and implemented for viscoelastic porous media