Abstract

The phase-field approach to predicting crack initiation and propagation relies on a damage accumulation function to describe the phase, or state, of fracturing material. The material is in some phase between either completely undamaged or completely cracked. A continuous transition between the two extremes of undamaged and completely fractured material allows cracks to be modeled without explicit tracking of discontinuities in the geometry or displacement fields. A significant feature of these models is that the behavior of the crack is completely determined by a coupled system of partial differential equations. There are no additional calculations needed to determine crack nucleation, bifurcation, and merging.
In this presentation, we will review our current work on applying second-order and fourth-order phase-field models to quasi-static and dynamic fracture of brittle and ductile materials, within the framework of isogeometric analysis. We will present results for several two- and three-dimensional problems to demonstrate the ability of the phase-field models to capture complex crack propagation patterns. 

Abstract

The methods of two-scale analysis based on the method of numerical material testing (NMT) and plate testing (NPT) have indisputable superiority over FE2 -type micro-macro coupling schemes, though there are some issues to be resolved or examined. In particular, the decoupling of micro- and macroscopic analyses makes the homogenization-based two-scale analysis methods computationally law-cost and thus practical in view of industrial applications, but at the same time requires us to prepare reliable macroscopic constitutive models. To identify promising research directions for two-scale analyses, we introduce three selected topics described below to discuss the advantages and challenges of NMT and NPT.

A major advantage in the first topic is that macroscopic inelastic constitutive models for a variety of composite materials can easily be determined with reference to the material models assumed for periodic microstructures (unit cells), if the small strain assumption is valid. However, NMTs with finite deformation of resins often cause some trouble. That is, even though isotropic multiplicative finite visco-plastic models is originally developed and introduced for NMTs, the formulation of the corresponding anisotropic model for macroscopic analyses is not always possible.

The second topic arises from the method of NPT for composite plates, which enables us to evaluate the relationship between macroscopic resultant stresses and generalized strains. The originally formulated microscopic problem is featured by the in-plane periodic boundary conditions, which properly reproduces all the plate’s deformation modes. If we confine ourselves to linearly elastic material behavior, even the topology optimization of microscopic plate’s cross-sections is successfully conducted to maximize the performance at macro-scale. Nonetheless, we may not meet a macroscopic plate model that can accommodate the NPT results of nonlinear material behavior assumed for the in-plane unit cell.

The third subject of study is related to the method of isogeometric analyses (IGA) for NMT and NPT. Since the treatment of the combination of different materials in IGA models is not trivial especially along with periodicity constraints, the first priority is to clearly specify points at issue in the numerical modeling, or equivalently mesh generation, for IG homogenization analysis (IGHA). The most important issue is how to generate patches for NURBS representation of the geometry of a rectangular parallelepiped unit cell to realize appropriate deformations in consideration of the convex-full property of IGA and the in-plane periodicity. A promising coping technique is proposed and numerically demonstrated. 

Abstract

A new methodology in isogeometric analysis (IGA) is presented. This methodology delivers low-cost variable-scale approximations (surrogates) of the matrices which IGA conventionally requires to be computed from element-scale quadrature formulas. To generate surrogate matrices, quadrature must only be performed on certain elements in the computational domain. This, in turn, determines only a subset of the entries in the final matrix.The remaining matrix entries are computed by a simple B-spline interpolation procedure. Poisson’s equation, membrane vibration, plate bending, and Stokes’ flow problems are studied. In these problems, the use of surrogate matrices has a negligible impact on solution accuracy. Because only a small fraction of the original quadrature must be performed, we are able to report beyond a fifty-fold reduction in overall assembly time in the same software. The capacity for even further speed-ups is clearly demonstrated. The implementation used here was achieved by a small number of modifications to the open-source IGA software library GeoPDEs. Similar modifications could be made to other present-day software libraries.

Abstract

A reference implementation of a new method in isogeometric analysis (IGA) is presented. It delivers lowcost variable-scale approximations (surrogates) of the matrices which IGA conventionally requires to be computed by element-scale quadrature. To generate surrogate matrices, quadrature must only be performed on a fraction of the elements in the computational domain. In this way, quadrature determines only a subset of the entries in the final matrix. The remaining matrix entries are computed by a simple B-spline interpolation procedure. We present the modifications and extensions required for a reference implementation in the open-source IGA software library GeoPDEs. The exposition is fashioned to help facilitate similar modifications in other contemporary software libraries. Method name: Surrogate matrix method for isogeometric analysis

Abstract

We present a method to blend local maximum entropy (LME) meshfree approximants and isogeometric analysis. The coupling strategy exploits the optimization program behind LME approximation, treats isogeometric and LME basis functions on an equal footing in the reproducibility constraints, but views the former as data in the constrained minimization. The resulting scheme exploits the best features and overcomes the main drawbacks of each of these approximants. Indeed, it preserves the high fidelity boundary representation (exact CAD geometry) of isogeometric analysis, out of reach for bare meshfree methods, and easily handles volume discretization and unstructured grids with possibly local refinement, while maintaining the smoothness and non-negativity of the basis functions. We implement the method with B-Splines in two dimensions, but the procedure carries over to higher spatial dimensions or to other non-negative approximants such as NURBS or subdivision schemes. The performance of the method is illustrated with the heat equation, and linear and nonlinear elasticity. The ability of the proposed method to impose directly essential boundary conditions in non-convex domains, and to deal with unstructured grids and local refinement in domains of complex geometry and topology is highlighted by the numerical examples.

Abstract

In this paper, we devise cell-based maximum-entropy (max-ent) basis functions that are used in a Galerkin method for the solution of partial differential equations. The motivation behind this work is the construction of smooth approximants with controllable support on unstructured meshes. In the variational scheme to obtain max-ent basis functions, the nodal prior weight function is constructed from an approximate distance function to a polygonal curve in R-2. More precisely, we take powers of the composition of R-functions via Boolean operations. The basis functions so constructed are nonnegative, smooth, linearly complete, and compactly-supported in a neighbor-ring of segments that enclose each node. The smoothness is controlled by two positive integer parameters: the normalization order of the approximation of the distance function and the power to which it is raised. The properties and mathematical foundations of the new compactly-supported approximants are described, and its use to solve two-dimensional elliptic boundary-value problems (Poisson equation and linear elasticity) is demonstrated. The sound accuracy and the optimal rates of convergence of the method in Sobolev norms are established.

Abstract

Abstract

In this study, IGA is introduced into the performance analysis of the expansion water seal for an exact representation of its complex geometrical shape. Firstly, the incremental equilibrium equations used in the large deformation analysis are derived for the IGA discretization model based on the updated Lagrangian formulation. The contact forces are treated as a special kind of traction, which results in a simple expression of the equilibrium equations. Then, through the investigation of the contact conditions, the contact force is verified to be solution of two box-constrained variational inequalities with respect to the normal and tangential contact conditions, respectively. Furthermore, the incremental equilibrium equations for all components of the water seal system and the variational inequalities for all contacts between the components are assembled together and reformulated as a global variational inequality, which is resolved by using the Extra-gradient method. Ultimately, the new method is applied in the performance comparison of two optional expansion water seals, in which the capability and precision of the proposed method are investigated. Results verify that the proposed method is effective in the numerical simulation of the expansion water seal and has a higher precision than the traditional FEM under the same conditions.