Extended finite element-based cohesive zone method for modeling simultaneous hydraulic fracture height growth in layered reservoirs

In this study,a fully coupled hydromechanical model within the extended finite element method(XFEM)-based cohesive zone method(CZM)is employed to investigate the simultaneous height growth behavior of multi-cluster hydraulic fractures in layered porous reservoirs with modulus contrast.The coupled hydromechanical model is first verified against an analytical solution and a laboratory experiment.Then,the fracture geometry(e.g.height,aperture,and area)and fluid pressure evolutions of multiple hydraulic fractures placed in a porous reservoir interbedded with alternating stiff and soft layers are investigated using the model.The stress and pore pressure distributions within the layered reservoir during fluid injection are also presented.The simulation results reveal that stress umbrellas are easily to form among multiple hydraulic fractures’tips when propagating in soft layers,which impedes the simultaneous height growth.It is also observed that the impediment effect of soft layer is much more significant in the fractures suppressed by the preferential growth of adjoining fractures.After that,the combined effect of in situ stress ratio and fracturing spacing on the multi-fracture height growth is presented,and the results elucidate the influence of in situ stress ratio on the height growth behavior depending on the fracture spacing.Finally,it is found that the inclusion of soft layers changes the aperture distribution of outmost and interior hydraulic fractures.The results obtained from this study may provide some insights on the understanding of hydraulic fracture height containment observed in filed.

Mixed time discontinuous space-time finite element method for convection diffusion equations

A mixed time discontinuous space-time finite element scheme for secondorder convection diffusion problems is constructed and analyzed. Order of the equation is lowered by the mixed finite element method. The low order equation is discretized with a space-time finite element method, continuous in space but discontinuous in time. Stability, existence, uniqueness and convergence of the approximate solutions are proved. Numerical results are presented to illustrate efficiency of the proposed method.

THE SPACE-TIME FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR PARABOLIC PROBLEMS

Adaptive space-time finite element method, continuous in space but discontinuous in time for semi-linear parabolic problems is discussed. The approach is based on a combination of finite element and finite difference techniques. The existence and uniqueness of the weak solution are proved without any assumptions on choice of the spacetime meshes. Basic error estimates in L-infinity (L-2) norm, that is maximum-norm in time, L-2-norm in space are obtained. The numerical results are given in the last part and the analysis between theoretic and experimental results are obtained.

SPACE-TIME FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR SCHRDINGER EQUATION AND ITS CONSERVATION

Energy conservation of nonlinear Schrodinger ordinary differential equation was proved through using continuous finite element methods of ordinary differential equation; Energy integration conservation was proved through using space-time continuous fully discrete finite element methods and the electron nearly conservation with higher order error was obtained through using time discontinuous only space continuous finite element methods of nonlinear Schrodinger partial equation. The numerical results are in accordance with the theory.

ASYMPTOTICAL STABILITY OF NEUTRAL REACTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS WITH PCAS AND THEIR FINITE ELEMENT METHODS

This paper focuses on the analytical and numerical asymptotical stability of neutral reaction-diffusion equations with piecewise continuous arguments.First,for the analytical solutions of the equations,we derive their expressions and asymptotical stability criteria.Second,for the semi-discrete and one-parameter fully-discrete finite element methods solving the above equations,we work out the sufficient conditions for assuring that the finite element solutions are asymptotically stable.Finally,with a typical example with numerical experiments,we illustrate the applicability of the obtained theoretical results.

Finite Element Orthogonal Collocation Approach for Time Fractional Telegraph Equation with Mamadu-Njoseh Polynomials

Finite element method (FEM) is an efficient numerical tool for the solution of partial differential equations (PDEs). It is one of the most general methods when compared to other numerical techniques. PDEs posed in a variational form over a given space, say a Hilbert space, are better numerically handled with the FEM. The FEM algorithm is used in various applications which includes fluid flow, heat transfer, acoustics, structural mechanics and dynamics, electric and magnetic field, etc. Thus, in this paper, the Finite Element Orthogonal Collocation Approach (FEOCA) is established for the approximate solution of Time Fractional Telegraph Equation (TFTE) with Mamadu-Njoseh polynomials as grid points corresponding to new basis functions constructed in the finite element space. The FEOCA is an elegant mixture of the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Orthogonal Collocation Method (OCM). Two numerical examples are experimented on to verify the accuracy and rate of convergence of the method as compared with the theoretical results, and other methods in literature.

Longitudinal crack on slab surface at straightening stage during continuous casting using finite element method

Deformation behavior of slab at the straightening stage during continuous casting was simulated by the explicit dynamic finite element method,and the stress distribution along the width direction of the slab and its change regularity at slab center during continuous casting were obtained.The influence of distribution and change of stress on the propagation of longitudinal cracks on slab surface was discussed.The results show that the tensional stress appears on slab surface at the inner arc side and the compressive stress appears on slab surface at the outer arc side at stages 6-8 in straightening zone during continuous casting.Longitudinal cracks generally appear on slab top surface and do not appear on slab bottom surface,which are also observed in industry.

A streamline diffusion nonconforming finite element method for the time-dependent linearized Navier-Stokes equations

A nonconforming finite element method of finite difference streamline diffusion type is proposed to solve the time-dependent linearized Navier-Stokes equations. The backward Euler scheme is used for time discretization. Crouzeix-Raviart nonconforming finite element approximation, namely, nonconforming （P1）2 - P0 element, is used for the velocity and pressure fields with the streamline diffusion technique to cope with usual instabilities caused by the convection and time terms. Stability and error estimates are derived with suitable norms.

CONTINUOUS FINITE ELEMENT METHODS FOR REISSNER-MINDLIN PLATE PROBLEM

On triangle or quadrilateral meshes, two finite element methods are proposed for solving the Reissner-Mindlin plate problem either by augmenting the Galerkin formulation or modifying the plate-thickness. In these methods, the transverse displacement is approximated by conforming （bi）linear macroelements or （bi）quadratic elements, and the rotation by conforming （bi）linear elements. The shear stress can be locally computed from transverse displacement and rotation. Uniform in plate thickness, optimal error bounds are obtained for the transverse displacement, rotation, and shear stress in their natural norms. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the theoretical results.

Response of thermal source in a transversely isotropic thermoelastic half-space with mass diffusion by using a finite element method

The two-dimensional problem of generalized thermoelastic diffusion material with thermal and diffusion relaxation times is investigated in the context of the Lord-Shulman theory. As an application of the problem, a particular type of thermal source is considered and the problem is solved numerically by using a finite element method. The components of displacement, stress, temperature distribution chemical potential and mass concentration are obtained. The resulting quantities are depicted graphically for a special model. An appreciable effect of relaxation times is observed on various resulting quantities.

Determination of the Minimum Testing Time for Wireline Formation Testing with the Finite Element Method

The wireline formation tester （WFT） is an important tool for formation evaluation, such as calculating the formation pressure and permeability, identifying the fluid type, and determining the interface between oil and water. However, in a low porosity and low permeability formation, the supercharge pressure effect exists, since the mudcake has a poor sealing ability. The mudcake cannot isolate the hydrostatic pressure of the formation around the borehole and the mud seeps into the formations, leading to inaccurate formation pressure measurement. At the same time, the tool can be easily stuck in the low porosity/low permeability formation due to the long waiting and testing time. We present a method for determining the minimum testing time for the wireline formation tester. The pressure distribution of the mudcake and the formation were respectively calculated with the finite element method （FEM）. The radius of the influence of mud pressure was also computed, and the minimum testing time in low porosity/low permeability formations was determined within a range of values for different formation permeabilities. The determination of the minimum testing time ensures an accurate formation pressure measurement and minimizes possible accidents due to long waiting and testing time.

Continuous finite element methods for Hamiltonian systems

By applying the continuous finite element methods of ordinary differential equations, the linear element methods are proved having second-order pseudo-symplectic scheme and the quadratic element methods are proved having third-order pseudo- symplectic scheme respectively for general Hamiltonian systems, and they both keep energy conservative. The finite element methods are proved to be symplectic as well as energy conservative for linear Hamiltonian systems. The numerical results are in agree-ment with theory.

Finite Element Method for a Kind of Two-Dimensional Space-Fractional Diffusion Equation with Its Implementation

In this article, we consider a two-dimensional symmetric space-fractional diffusion equation in which the space fractional derivatives are defined in Riesz potential sense. The well-posed feature is guaranteed by energy inequality. To solve the diffusion equation, a fully discrete form is established by employing Crank-Nicolson technique in time and Galerkin finite element method in space. The stability and convergence are proved and the stiffness matrix is given analytically. Three numerical examples are given to confirm our theoretical analysis in which we find that even with the same initial condition, the classical and fractional diffusion equations perform differently but tend to be uniform diffusion at last.

DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR A FORWARD-BACKWARD HEAT EQUATION

A space-time finite element method,discontinuous in time but continuous in space,is studied to solve the nonlinear forward-backward heat equation.A linearized technique is introduced in order to obtain the error estimates of the approximate solutions.And the numerical simulations are given.

Finger capacitance of a terahertz photomixer in low-temperature-grown GaAs using the finite element method

Interdigitated finger capacitance of a continuous-wave terahertz photomixer is calculated using the finite element method.For the frequently used electrode width（0.2 μm） and gap width（1.8 μm）,the finger capacitance increases quasi-quadratically with the number of electrodes increasing.The quasi-quadratic dependence can be explained by a sequence of lumped capacitors connected in parallel.For a photomixer composed of 10 electrodes and 9 photoconductive gaps,the finger capacitance increases as the gap width increases at a small electrode width,and follows the reverse trend at a large electrode width.For a constant electrode width,the finger capacitance first decreases and then slightly increases as the gap broadens until the smallest finger capacitance is formed.We also investigate the finger capacitances at different electrode and gap configurations with the 8 μm × 8 μm photomixer commonly used in previous studies.These calculations lead to a better understanding of the finger capacitance affected by the finger parameters,and should lead to terahertz photomixer optimization.

Time domain method for calculating free field motion of a layered half-space subjected to obliquely incident body waves

In numerical simulation of wave scattering under oblique incident body waves using the finite element method, the free field motion at the incident lateral boundary induced by the background layered half-space complicates the computational area. In order to replace the complex frequency domain method, a time-domain method to calculate the free field motion of a layered half-space subjected to oblique incident body waves is developed in this paper. The new method decouples the equations of motion used in the finite element method and offers an interpolation formula of the free field motion. This formula is based on the fact that the apparent horizontal velocity of the free field motion is constant and can be calculated exactly. Both the theoretical analysis and numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method offers a high degree of accuracy.

TIME-DISCRETIZATION PROCEDURE FOR FINITE ELEMENT APPROXIMATION OF COMPRESSIBLE MISCIBLE DISPLACEMENT IN POROUS MEDIA

We’ll consider the model of two-phase compressible miscible displacement in porous media which includes molecular diffusion and dispersion in one dimensional space. Time-discretization procedure is established and analysed. The optimal error estimate in L2 norm is proved by introducing a new interpolation operator R.

Benchmarking of two three-dimensional numerical models in time/space domain to predict railway-induced ground vibrations

In the last 30 years,the scientific community has developed and proposed different models and numerical approaches for the study of vibrations induced by railway traffic.Most of them are formulated in the frequency/wave number domain and with a 2.5D approach.Three-dimensional numerical models formulated in the time/space domain are less frequently used,mainly due to their high computational cost.Notwithstanding,these models present very attractive characteristics,such as the possibility of considering nonlinear behaviors or the modelling of excess pore pressure and non-homogeneous and non-periodic geometries in the longitudinal direction of the track.In this study,two 3D numerical approaches formulated in the time/space domain are compared and experimentally validated.The first one consists of a finite element approach and the second one of a finite difference approach.The experimental validation in an actual case situated in Carregado(Portugal)shows an acceptable fitting between the numerical results and the actual measurements for both models.However,there are some differences among them.This study therefore includes some recommendations for their use in practical soil dynamics and geotechnical engineering.