Abstract

Incompressible modelling in finite elements has been a major concern since its early developments and has been extensively studied. However, incompressibility in mesh-free method is still an open topic. Thus, instabilities or locking can preclude the use of mesh-free approximations in such problems. Here, a novel mesh-free formulation is proposed for incompressible flow. It is based on defining a pseudo-divergence-free interpolation space. That is, the finite dimensional interpolation space approaches a divergence-free space when the discretization is refined. Note that such an interpolation does not include any overhead I the computations. The numerical evaluations are performed using the inf-sup numerical test and two well-known benchmark examples for Stokes flow.

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

Locking in finite elements has been a major concern since its early developments and has been extensively studied. However, locking in mesh-free methods is still an open topic. Until now the remedies proposed in the literature are extensions of already developed methods for finite elements. Here a new approach is explored and an improved formulation that asymptotically suppresses volumetric locking for the EFG method is proposed. The diffuse divergence converges to the exact divergence. Since the diffuse divergence-free condition can be imposed a priori, new interpolation functions are defined that asymptotically verify the incompressibility condition. Modal analysis and numerical results for classical benchmark tests in solids and fluids corroborate this issue.

Abstract

Incompressible modeling in finite elements has been a major concern since its early developments and has been extensively studied. However, incompressibility in mesh-free methods is still an open topic. Thus, instabilities or locking can preclude the use of mesh-free approximations in such problems. Here, a novel mesh-free formulation is proposed for incompressible flow. It is based on defining a pseudo-divergence-free interpolation space. That is, the finite dimensional interpolation space approaches a divergence-free space when the discretization is refined. Note that such an interpolation does not include any overhead in the computations. The numerical evaluations are performed using the inf–sup numerical test and two well-known benchmark examples for Stokes flow.