A linearly-independent higher-order extended numerical manifold method and its application to multiple crack growth simulation

The numerical manifold method(NMM)can be viewed as an inherent continuous-discontinuous numerical method,which is based on two cover systems including mathematical and physical covers.Higher-order NMM that adopts higher-order polynomials as its local approximations generally shows higher precision than zero-order NMM whose local approximations are constants.Therefore,higherorder NMM will be an excellent choice for crack propagation problem which requires higher stress accuracy.In addition,it is crucial to improve the stress accuracy around the crack tip for determining the direction of crack growth according to the maximum circumferential stress criterion in fracture mechanics.Thus,some other enriched local approximations are introduced to model the stress singularity at the crack tip.Generally,higher-order NMM,especially first-order NMM wherein local approximations are first-order polynomials,has the linear dependence problems as other partition of unit(PUM)based numerical methods does.To overcome this problem,an extended NMM is developed based on a new local approximation derived from the triangular plate element in the finite element method(FEM),which has no linear dependence issue.Meanwhile,the stresses at the nodes of mathematical mesh(the nodal stresses in FEM)are continuous and the degrees of freedom defined on the physical patches are physically meaningful.Next,the extended NMM is employed to solve multiple crack propagation problems.It shows that the fracture mechanics requirement and mechanical equilibrium can be satisfied by the trial-and-error method and the adjustment of the load multiplier in the process of crack propagation.Four numerical examples are illustrated to verify the feasibility of the proposed extended NMM.The numerical examples indicate that the crack growths simulated by the extended NMM are in good accordance with the reference solutions.Thus the effectiveness and correctness of the developed NMM have been validated.

An overview of particle-based numerical manifold method and its application to dynamic rock fracturing

This review summarizes the development of particle-based numerical manifold method(PNMM)and its applications to rock dynamics.The fundamental principle of numerical manifold method(NMM)is first briefly introduced.Then,the history of the newly developed PNMM is given.Basic idea of PNMM and its simulation procedure are presented.Considering that PNMM could be regarded as an NMM-based model,a comparison of PNMM and NMM is discussed from several points of view in this paper.Besides,accomplished applications of PNMM to the dynamic rock fracturing are also reviewed.Finally,some recommendations are provided for the future work of PNMM.

Numerical Method Based on Compatible Manifold Element for Thin Plate Bending

The typical quadrangular and triangular elements for thin plate bending based on Kirchhoff assumptions are the non- conforming elements with low computational accuracy and limitative application range in fmite element method（FEM）. Some compatible elements can be developed by the means of supplementing correction functions, increasing nodes in element or on the boundaries, expanding nodal degrees of freedom（DOF）, etc, but these elements are inconvenient to apply in practice for the high calculation complexity. In this paper, in order to overcome the defects of thin plate bending finite element, numerical manifold method（NMM） was introduced to solve thin plate bending deformation problem. Rectangular mesh was adopted as mathematical mesh to form f＇mite element cover system, and then 16-cover manifold element was proposed. Numerical manifold formulas were constructed on the basis of minimum potential energy principle, displacement boundary conditions are implemented by penalty function method, and all the element matrixes were derived in details. The 16-cover element has a simple calculation process for employing only the transverse displacement cover DOFs as the basic unknown variables, and has been proved to meet the requirements of completeness and full compatibility. As an application, the presented 16-cover element has been used to analyze bending deformation of square thin plate under different loads and boundary conditions, and the results show that numerical manifold method with compatible element, compared with finite element method, can improve computational accuracy and convergence greatly.

A generalized cover renewal strategy for multiple crack propagation in two-dimensional numerical manifold method

Partition of unity based numerical manifold method can solve continuous and discontinuous problems in a unified framework with a two-cover system,i.e.,the mathematical cover and physical cover.However,renewal of the topology of the two-cover system poses a challenge for multiple crack propagation problems and there are few references.In this study,a robust and efficient strategy is proposed to update the cover system of the numerical manifold method in simulation of multiple crack propagation problems.The proposed algorithm updates the cover system with a bottom-up process:1)identification of fractured manifold elements according to the previous and latest crack tip position;and 2)local topological update of the manifold elements,physical patches,block boundary loops,and non-persistent joint loops according to the scenario classification of the propagating crack.The proposed crack tracking strategy and classification of the renewal cases promote a robust and efficient cover renewal algorithm for multiple crack propagation analysis.Three crack propagation examples show that the proposed algorithm performs well in updating the cover system.This cover renewal methodology can be extended for numerical manifold method with polygonal mathematical covers.

THEORETICAL STUDY OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

The three-dimensional numerical manifold method（NMM） is studied on the basis of two-dimensional numerical manifold method. The three-dimensional cover displacement function is studied. The mechanical analysis and Hammer integral method of three-dimensional numerical manifold method are put forward. The stiffness matrix of three-dimensional manifold element is derived and the dissection rules are given. The theoretical system and the numerical realizing method of three-dimensional numerical manifold method are systematically studied. As an example, the cantilever with load on the end is calculated, and the results show that the precision and efficiency are agreeable.

Numerical simulation of crack propagation by manifold method

In this paper, by means of the maximum circle tensile stress on curve of constant ω and stress intensity factors by a path independent contour integral method, trajectories of maxed mode crack propagation are simulated through numerical manifold method. The crack propagation is traced dynamically by modifying the neighboring connection between the crack-top and nodes within elements in the calculating process. This method has the advantages such as less modified area, easiness of programming, high realizability and so on. Then a single sharp nicked specimen is used to verified the numerical result. It is shown that the provided method is reasonable and effective.

Incompatible numerical manifold method for fracture problems

The incompatible numerical manifold method （INMM） is based on the finite cover approximation theory, which provides a unified framework for problems dealing with continuum and discontinuities. The incompatible numerical manifold method employs two cover systems as follows. The mathematical cover system provides the nodes for forming finite covers of the solution domain and the weighted functions, and the physical cover system describes geometry of the domain and the discontinuous surfaces therein. In INMM, the mathematical finite cover approximation theory is used to model cracks that lead to interior discontinuities in the process of displacement. Therefore, the discontinuity is treated mathematically instead of empirically by the existing methods. However, one cover of a node is divided into two irregular sub-covers when the INMM is used to model the discontinuity. As a result, the method sometimes causes numerical errors at the tip of a crack. To improve the precision of the INMM, the analytical solution is used at the tip of a crack, and thus the cover displacement functions are extended with higher precision and computational efficiency. Some numerical examples are given.

On hp refinements of independent cover numerical manifold method——some strategies and observations

In this paper,strategies are provided for a powerful numerical manifold method(NMM)with h and p refinement in analyses of elasticity and elasto-plasticity.The new NMM is based on the concept of the independent cover,which gets rid of NMM's important defect of rank deficiency when using higher-order local approximation functions.Several techniques are presented.In terms of mesh generation,a relationship between the quadtree structure and the mathematical mesh is established to allow a robust h-refinement.As to the condition number,a scaling based on the physical patch is much better than the classical scaling based on the mathematical patch;an overlapping width of 1%–10%can ensure a good condition number for 2nd,3rd,and 4th order local approximation functions;the small element issue can be overcome after the local approximation on small patch is replaced by that on a regular patch.On numerical accuracy,local approximation using complete polynomials is necessary for the optimal convergence rate.Two issues that may damage the convergence rate should be prevented.The first is to approximate the curved boundary of a higher-order element by overly few straight lines,and the second is excessive overlapping width.Finally,several refinement strategies are verified by numerical examples.

Two-dimensional numerical manifold method with multilayer covers

In order to reach the best numerical properties with the numerical manifold method(NMM),uniform finite element meshes are always favorite while constructing mathematical covers,where all the elements are congruent.In the presence of steep gradients or strong singularities,in principle,the locally-defined special functions can be added into the NMM space by means of the partition of unity,but they are not available to those complex problems with heterogeneity or nonlinearity,necessitating local refinement on uniform meshes.This is believed to be one of the most important open issues in NMM.In this study multilayer covers are proposed to solve this issue.In addition to the first layer cover which is the global cover and covers the whole problem domain,the second and higher layer covers with smaller elements,called local covers,are used to cover those local regions with steep gradients or strong singularities.The global cover and the local covers have their own partition of unity,and they all participate in the approximation to the solution.Being advantageous over the existing procedures,the proposed approach is easy to deal with any arbitrary-layer hanging nodes with no need to construct super-elements with variable number of edge nodes or introduce the Lagrange multipliers to enforce the continuity between small and big elements.With no limitation to cover layers,meanwhile,the creation of an even error distribution over the whole problem domain is significantly facilitated.Some typical examples with steep gradients or strong singularities are analyzed to demonstrate the capacity of the proposed approach.

Numerical manifold method based on isogeometric analysis

In this study, numerical manifold method(NMM) coupled with non-uniform rational B-splines(NURBS) and T-splines in the context of isogeometric analysis is proposed to allow for the treatments of complex geometries and local refinement. Computational formula for a 9-node NMM based on quadratic B-splines is derived. In order to exactly represent some common free-form shapes such as circles, arcs, and ellipsoids, quadratic non-uniform rational B-splines(NURBS) are introduced into NMM. The coordinate transformation based on the basis function of NURBS is established to enable exact integration for the manifold elements containing those shapes. For the case of crack propagation problems where singular fields around crack tips exist, local refinement technique by the application of T-spline discretizations is incorporated into NMM, which facilitates a truly local refinement without extending the entire row of control points. A local refinement strategy for the 4-node mathematical cover mesh based on T-splines and Lagrange interpolation polynomial is proposed. Results from numerical examples show that the 9-node NMM based on NURBS has higher accuracies. The coordinate transformation based on the NURBS basis function improves the accuracy of NMM by exact integration. The local mesh refinement using T-splines reduces the number of degrees of freedom while maintaining calculation accuracy at the same time.

Wilson非协调数值流形方法

三维数值流形方法中,当数学覆盖取六面体体单元时流形单元总体位移函数中所包含的多项式并不是完全的,非完全的高次项非但对改善精度不起作用,而且还可能起相反的作用。为此,基于Wilson非协调元理论,推导了附加非协调位移基本项的流形元通用公式,通过内参静力凝聚处理,导出了消除单元内参后的单元应变矩阵、单元刚度矩阵,建立了非协调数值流形方法。数值试验表明,在规则数学网格覆盖下它们能够保证收敛,有较高的精度,从而证明所建方法的可行性。

A high order numerical manifold method and its application to linear elastic continuous and fracture problems

The numerical manifold method(NMM) is a partition of unity(PU) based method. For the purpose of obtaining better accuracy with the same mesh, high order global approximation can be adopted by increasing the order of local approximations(LAs). This,however, will cause the "linear dependence"(LD) issue, where the global matrix is rank deficient even after sufficient constraints are enforced. In this paper, through quadrilateral mesh to form the mathematical cover, a high order numerical manifold method called Quad4-COLS(NMM) is developed, where the constrained and orthonormalized least-squares method(CO-LS) is used to construct the LAs. The developed Quad4-COLS(NMM) does not need extra nodes or DOFs to construct high order global approximations, while is free from the LD issue. Nine numerical tests including five tests for linear elastic continuous problems and four tests for linear elastic fracture problems are carried out to validate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed Quad4-COLS(NMM).

An h-adaptive numerical manifold method for solid mechanics problems

The numerical manifold method(NMM) features its dual cover systems, namely the mathematical cover and physical cover,which provide a unified framework for mechanics problems involving continuum and discontinuum deformation. Uniform finite element meshes can be and are usually used to construct the mathematical cover. Though this strategy can handle different kinds of problems in a unified way, it is not economical for cases with steep deformation gradients or singularities. In this paper, using the recovery-based error estimator, an h-adaptive NMM on quadtree meshes is proposed to deal with such cases. The quadtree meshes serve as the mathematical meshes, on which the local refinement is carried out. When the quadtree meshes are refined,the corresponding mathematical cover, physical cover and manifold elements are updated accordingly. To handle the hanging nodes in the quadtree meshes, we resort to mean value coordinates. Comparing to the refinement based on manifold elements,the proposed strategy guarantees consistent structured meshes throughout the adaptive process, thus retaining the unique feature of original NMM. In contrast with polygonal finite element method, an advantage of the proposed method is that the meshes do not need to conform to the crack face and material boundary, which means the adaptive NMM is very suitable for problems with complex geometric boundary. Several representative mechanics problems, including crack problems, are analyzed to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed method. It is demonstrated that the proposed adaptive NMM has higher accuracy and better performance comparing to uniform refinement strategy.

基于独立覆盖的流形法的收敛性及覆盖网格特性

针对前期提出的基于部分重叠覆盖的数值流形方法,将其内涵范围缩小,仅研究其中的一种情况——基于独立覆盖的数值流形方法。从完备性和协调性2个方面讨论该方法的收敛性,特别强调其收敛性是基于各个独立覆盖的逼近而建立起来的,独立覆盖之间条形连接区域的尺寸要取小,并由此推断及用实例说明,覆盖网格可以具备"3个任意"的优良特性——任意形状、任意连接以及由此而来的可任意加密的能力,从而有望使数值计算的前处理工作大为简化。

数值流形方法研究及应用进展

基于有限覆盖技术的数值流形方法是一种新的广义的数值方法.该方法的场函数近似原理和有限元、无网格、单位分解等方法相似,但在网格划分、覆盖形式、近似函数等方面有其自身的特点和优势.对该方法近年来在理论研究和应用方面取得的重要进展进行了综述.在理论研究方面,日前已对不同形式物理覆盖流形单元的性能进行了研究,结果表明流形单元的精度较有限单元高,且提高覆盖函数的阶次能提高单元的精度;同时理论研究已由二维低阶流形方法推广到三维高阶流形方法,由线性流形方法推广到非线性流形方法,由基于能量原理的流形方法推广到基于加权余量的流形方法,非协调流形方法、无网格流形方法等也已开展了研究;此外,覆盖系统的自动生成、覆盖函数的形式以及边界条件的处理方法等流形方法相关理论的研究也取得了进展.在应用方面,开展了有关岩石破坏和裂纹扩展等非连续变形分析更深入的研究,并已逐步推广到金属塑性变形分析、多孔介质变形分析以及温度场的数值分析等多个领域.针对日前流形方法的研究和应用现状,该文展望了流形方法理论及实现方法的研究方向、及其在计算流体力学、金属成形等大变形问题、多物理场分析等领域的应用前景.

部分重叠覆盖的数值流形方法初步研究

数值流形方法(简称流形法)采用基于完全重叠覆盖的有限元网格作为数学网格,物理网格与数学网格的不匹配导致结构一些关键部位的计算精度下降。针对此问题,首次提出部分重叠覆盖的流形法,采用以独立覆盖为主的分析方式,独立覆盖之间仅用较小的部分重叠区域保持连续性,从而将现有的基于完全重叠覆盖的流形法扩展到一般意义上的流形研究。对矩形部分重叠覆盖进行初步研究,通过单个矩形数学网格各结点之间的自由度约束方式,很方便地将完全重叠的覆盖形式及流形法公式转化为部分重叠的覆盖形式及公式。算例分析初步验证了这种新型流形法的有效性。

数值流形方法对岩土工程开挖卸荷问题的模拟

基于数值流形方法数学覆盖与物理网格的相对独立性,考虑任一时刻体系中真实存在的各平衡力项对体系平衡的作用,提出用数值流形方法模拟岩土工程开挖卸荷的方法。相对于传统数值方法,数值流形方法在模拟开挖时不用计算开挖面上的释放荷载,不用为卸除的材料部分准备专门的单元,简单的数学网格可以适应任意的开挖过程,使其对开挖的模拟更加简便和有效,同时高阶的流形方法对开挖问题具有较高的求解精度。

多裂纹扩展的数值流形法

数值流形法的求解体系建立在两套覆盖(包括数学覆盖和物理覆盖)和接触环路的基础之上,实现了对连续和非连续问题的统一求解.在处理裂纹问题时,数学覆盖无需与裂纹重合,方便岩体破坏过程的模拟.通过在裂纹尖端影响区域内的物理片上增加用于模拟应力奇异性的增强位移函数,发展了扩展的数值流形法.在此基础上,提出一种多裂纹扩展的控制算法,并给出了裂纹扩展过程中材料体的整体响应.针对典型的线弹性断裂力学问题,给出的数值算例表明所建议的方法是正确有效的.

三维数值流形法在裂纹扩展中的应用研究

运用三维数值流形法(3D NMM)进行三维裂纹扩展分析,并采用C++语言编写了相应的程序。充分利用三维数值流形法模拟裂纹扩展的优势,只需要更新裂纹尖端线附近的边界环路和流形单元,不需要使用阶跃函数。根据三维数值流形法计算得到的应力结果,应用非局部求迹方法分析每个裂纹尖端的破坏状态,如果发生破坏则沿垂直于其最大主应力方向扩展。针对裂纹扩展后的不同状况,采用四边形或三角形推进法。裂纹扩展后为了使变形后的面保持平面,必须对新生成的面进行三角化分割。对诸如单边裂纹、平行钱币型裂纹和倾斜钱币型裂纹扩展问题进行数值模拟。计算结果表明,采用三维数值流形法进行裂纹扩展模拟是可行的,文中方法对裂纹尖端线非闭合和闭合的情形均适用,且文中方法对于裂纹尖端线位于单元内部的非平面裂纹扩展也是有效的。

三维高阶数值流形方法研究

将三维流形单元的位移函数从一阶拓展为二阶,基于最小势能原理建立了有限单元覆盖的高阶流形方法分析格式,详细推导了三维流形单元的刚度矩阵、等效节点荷载列阵以及位移约束矩阵。计算结果表明,提高物理覆盖函数的阶次可有效提高流形方法的计算精度。