Application of control volume based finite element method for solving the black-oil fluid equations

This is the second paper of a series where we introduce a control volume based finite element method （CVFEM） to simulate multiphase flow in porous media. This is a fully conservative method able to deal with unstructured grids which can be used for representing any complexity of reservoir geometry and its geological objects in an accurate and efficient manner. In order to deal with the inherent heterogeneity of the reservoirs, all operations related to discretization are performed at the element level in a manner similar to classical finite element method （FEM）. Moreover, the proposed method can effectively reduce the so-called grid orientation effects. In the first paper of this series, we presented this method and its application for incompressible and immiscible two-phase flow simulation in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media. In this paper, we evaluate the capability of the method in the solution of highly nonlinear and coupled partial differential equations by simulating hydrocarbon reservoirs using the black-oil model. Furthermore, the effect of grid orientation is investigated by simulating a benchmark waterflooding problem. The numerical results show that the formulation presented here is efficient and accurate for solving the bubble point and three-phase coning problems.

THE ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF FINITE ELEMENT METHODS

On the basis of the concept of finite element methods, the rigorous analytical solutions of structural response in terms of the design variables are researched in this paper. The spatial trusses are taken as an example for the solution of the analytical expressions of the explicit displacements which are proved mathematically; then some conclusions are reached that are useful to structural sensitivity analysis and optimization. In the third part of the paper, a generalized geometric programming method is sugguested for the optimal model with the explicit displacement. Finally, the analytical solutions of the displacements of three trusses are given as examples.

Investigation of Coulomb force effects on ethylene glycol based nanofluid laminar flow in a porous enclosure

Forced convection heat transfer of ethylene glycol based nanofluid with FeOinside a porous medium is studied using the electric field. The control volume based finite element method(CVFEM) is selected for numerical simulation. The impact of the radiation parameter(R), the supplied voltage(?φ), the volume fraction of nanofluid(?), the Darcy number(Da), and the Reynolds number(Re) on nanofluid treatment is demonstrated. Results prove that thermal radiation increases the temperature gradient near the positive electrode. Distortion of isotherms increases with the enhance of the Darcy number and the Coulomb force.

Normal Bases and Their Dual-Bases over Finite Fields

In this paper, we prove the following results： 1） A normal basis N over a finite field is equivalent to its dual basis if and only if the multiplication table of N is symmetric; 2） The normal basis N is self-dual if and only if its multiplication table is symmetric and Tr（α^2） = 1, where α generates N; 3） An optimal normal basis N is self-dual if and only if N is a type-Ⅰ optimal normal basis with q = n = 2 or N is a type-Ⅱ optimal normal basis.

Finite element model updating of a rod-type ultrasonicmotor based on response surface method

The conventional finite element model （FEM） of a rod-type ultrasonic motor is usually simplified by means of continuous composite structure. Because the actual contact characteristics between the parts of the ultrasonic motor is ignored, there is bigger error between the calculated values and experimental results. Aiming at solving problem, a new modeling method of a rod-type ultrasonic motor is presented to obtain a high-accuracy FEM. The bolt pretension and the normal contact stiffness and friction coefficient of the contact surface of ultrasonic motor are all considered in this method, and the significant parameters of working mode of the motor are selected by the response surface method, and the goal of calculating the structural response rapidly is realized by building the response surface model to replace the FEM. The result of finite element model updating shows that the average error of modal frequencies of updated model drops to 0.21% from 1.20%. The accuracy of FEM is obviously improved, which indicates that the FEM updating based on response surface method is of great application value on the design for a rod-type ultrasonic motor.

A simple compliance modeling method for flexure hinges

Various types of flexure hinges have been introduced and implemented in a variety of fields due to their superior performances.The Castigliano’s second theorem,the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory based direct integration method and the unit-load method have been employed to analytically describe the elastic behavior of flexure hinges.However,all these methods require prior-knowledge of the beam theory and need to execute laborious integration operations for each term of the compliance matrix,thus highly decreasing the modeling efficiency and blocking practical applications of the modeling methods.In this paper,a novel finite beam based matrix modeling(FBMM)method is proposed to numerically obtain compliance matrices of flexure hinges with various shapes.The main concept of the method is to treat flexure hinges as serial connections of finite micro-beams,and the shearing and torsion effects of the hinges are especially considered to enhance the modeling accuracy.By means of matrix calculations,complete compliance matrices of flexure hinges can be derived effectively in one calculation process.A large number of numerical calculations are conducted for various types of flexure hinges with different shapes,and the results are compared with the ones obtained by conventional modeling methods.It demonstrates that the proposed modeling method is not only efficient but also accurate,and it is a more universal and more robust tool for describing elastic behavior of flexure hinges.