Static and free vibration analyses of functionally graded porous variable-thickness plates using an edge-based smoothed finite element method

The main purpose of this paper is to present numerical results of static bending and free vibration of functionally graded porous(FGP) variable-thickness plates by using an edge-based smoothed finite element method(ES-FEM) associate with the mixed interpolation of tensorial components technique for the three-node triangular element(MITC3), so-called ES-MITC3. This ES-MITC3 element is performed to eliminate the shear locking problem and to enhance the accuracy of the existing MITC3 element. In the ES-MITC3 element, the stiffness matrices are obtained by using the strain smoothing technique over the smoothing domains formed by two adjacent MITC3 triangular elements sharing an edge. Materials of the plate are FGP with a power-law index(k) and maximum porosity distributions(U) in the forms of cosine functions. The influences of some geometric parameters, material properties on static bending, and natural frequency of the FGP variable-thickness plates are examined in detail.

The use of the node-based smoothed finite element method to estimate static and seismic bearing capacities of shallow strip footings

The node-based smoothed finite element method(NS-FEM)is shortly presented for calculations of the static and seismic bearing capacities of shallow strip footings.A series of computations has been performed to assess variations in seismic bearing capacity factors with both horizontal and vertical seismic accelerations.Numerical results obtained agree very well with those using the slip-line method,revealing that the magnitude of the seismic bearing capacity is highly dependent upon the combinations of various directions of both components of the seismic acceleration.An upward vertical seismic acceleration reduces the seismic bearing capacity compared to the downward vertical seismic acceleration in calculations.In addition,particular emphasis is placed on a separate estimation of the effects of soil and superstructure inertia on each seismic bearing capacity component.While the effect of inertia forces arising in the soil on the seismic bearing capacity is non-trivial,and the superstructure inertia is the major contributor to reductions in the seismic bearing capacity.Both tables and charts are given for practical application to the seismic design of the foundations.

Implementing the Node Based Smoothed Finite Element Method as User Element in Abaqus for Linear and Nonlinear Elasticity

In this paper,the node based smoothed-strain Abaqus user element(UEL)in the framework of finite element method is introduced.The basic idea behind of the node based smoothed finite element(NSFEM)is that finite element cells are divided into subcells and subcells construct the smoothing domain associated with each node of a finite element cell[Liu,Dai and Nguyen-Thoi(2007)].Therefore,the numerical integration is globally performed over smoothing domains.It is demonstrated that the proposed UEL retains all the advantages of the NSFEM,i.e.,upper bound solution,overly soft stiffness and free from locking in compressible and nearly-incompressible media.In this work,the constant strain triangular(CST)elements are used to construct node based smoothing domains,since any complex two dimensional domains can be discretized using CST elements.This additional challenge is successfully addressed in this paper.The efficacy and robustness of the proposed work is obtained by several benchmark problems in both linear and nonlinear elasticity.The developed UEL and the associated files can be downloaded from https://github.com/nsundar/NSFEM.

Bubble-Enriched Smoothed Finite Element Methods for Nearly-Incompressible Solids

This work presents a locking-free smoothed finite element method(S-FEM)for the simulation of soft matter modelled by the equations of quasi-incompressible hyperelasticity.The proposed method overcomes well-known issues of standard finite element methods(FEM)in the incompressible limit:the over-estimation of stiffness and sensitivity to severely distorted meshes.The concepts of cell-based,edge-based and node-based S-FEMs are extended in this paper to three-dimensions.Additionally,a cubic bubble function is utilized to improve accuracy and stability.For the bubble function,an additional displacement degree of freedom is added at the centroid of the element.Several numerical studies are performed demonstrating the stability and validity of the proposed approach.The obtained results are compared with standard FEM and with analytical solutions to show the effectiveness of the method.

A Cell-Based Linear Smoothed Finite Element Method for Polygonal Topology Optimization

The aim of this work is to employ a modified cell-based smoothed finite element method(S-FEM)for topology optimization with the domain discretized with arbitrary polygons.In the present work,the linear polynomial basis function is used as the weight function instead of the constant weight function used in the standard S-FEM.This improves the accuracy and yields an optimal convergence rate.The gradients are smoothed over each smoothing domain,then used to compute the stiffness matrix.Within the proposed scheme,an optimum topology procedure is conducted over the smoothing domains.Structural materials are distributed over each smoothing domain and the filtering scheme relies on the smoothing domain.Numerical tests are carried out to pursue the performance of the proposed optimization by comparing convergence,efficiency and accuracy.

A Smoothed Finite Element Method for the Static and Free Vibration Analysis of Shells

A four-node quadrilateral shell element with smoothed membrane-bending based on Mindlin-Reissner theory is proposed. The element is a combination of a plate bending and membrane element. It is based on mixed interpolation where the bending and membrane stiffness matrices are calculated on the boundaries of the smoothing cells while the shear terms are approximated by independent interpolation functions in natural coordinates. The proposed element is robust, computationally inexpensive and free of locking. Since the integration is done on the element boundaries for the bending and membrane terms, the element is more accurate than the MITC4 element for distorted meshes. This will be demonstrated for several numerical examples.

A novel twice-interpolation finite element method for solid mechanics problems

Formulation and numerical evaluation of a novel twice-interpolation finite element method （TFEM） is presented for solid mechanics problems. In this method, the trial function for Galerkin weak form is constructed through two stages of consecutive interpolation. The primary interpolation follows exactly the same procedure of standard FEM and is further reproduced according to both nodal values and averaged nodal gradients obtained from primary interpolation. The trial functions thus constructed have continuous nodal gradients and contain higher order polynomial without increasing total freedoms. Several benchmark examples and a real dam problem are used to examine the TFEM in terms of accuracy and convergence. Compared with standard FEM, TFEM can achieve significantly better accuracy and higher convergence rate, and the continuous nodal stress can be obtained without any smoothing operation. It is also found that TFEM is insensitive to the quality of the elemental mesh. In addition, the present TFEM can treat the incompressible material without any modification.

Displacement fields denoising and strains extraction by finite element method

Optical full-field measurement methods are now widely applied in various domains. In general,the displacement fields can be directly obtained from the measurement,however in mechanical analysis strain fields are preferred.To extract strain fields from noisy displacement fields is always a challenging topic.In this study,a finite element method for smoothing displacement fields and calculating strain fields is proposed.An experimental test case on a holed aluminum specimen under tension is applied to validate this method.The heterogeneous displacement fields are measured by digital image correlation(DIC).By this proposed method,the result shows that the measuring noise on experimental displacement fields can be successfully removed,and strain fields can be reconstructed in the arbitrary area.

The smoothed finite element method (S-FEM):A framework for the design of numerical models for desired solutions

The smoothed finite element method (S-FEM) was originated by G R Liu by combining some meshfree techniques with the well-established standard finite element method (FEM). It has a family of models carefully designed with innovative types of smoothing domains. These models are found having a number of important and theoretically profound properties. This article first provides a concise and easy-to-follow presentation of key formulations used in the S-FEM. A number of important properties and unique features of S-FEM models are discussed in detail, including 1) theoretically proven softening effects;2) upper-bound solutions;3) accurate solutions and higher convergence rates;4) insensitivity to mesh distortion;5) Jacobian?free;6) volumetric-locking-free;and most importantly 7) working well with triangular and tetrahedral meshes that can be automatically generated. The S-FEM is thus ideal for automation in computations and adaptive analyses, and hence has profound impact on Al-assisted modeling and simulation. Most importantly, one can now purposely design an S-FEM model to obtain solutions with special properties as wish, meaning that S-FEM offers a framework for design numerical models with desired properties. This novel concept of numerical model demand may drastically change the landscape of modeling and simulation. Future directions of research are also provided.

Selective Smoothed Finite Element Method

The paper examines three selective schemes for the smoothed finite element method （SFEM） which was formulated by incorporating a cell-wise strain smoothing operation into the standard compatible finite element method （FEM）. These selective SFEM schemes were formulated based on three selective integration FEM schemes with similar properties found between the number of smoothing cells in the SFEM and the number of Gaussian integration points in the FEM. Both scheme 1 and scheme 2 are free of nearly incompressible locking, but scheme 2 is more general and gives better results than scheme 1. In addition, scheme 2 can be applied to anisotropic and nonlinear situations, while scheme 1 can only be applied to isotropic and linear situations. Scheme 3 is free of shear locking. This scheme can be applied to plate and shell problems. Results of the numerical study show that the selective SFEM schemes give more accurate results than the FEM schemes.

声子晶体能带结构仿真的CS-FEM方法及其在拓扑优化设计中的应用

针对声子晶体拓扑优化设计时能带结构和灵敏度计算效率低的缺陷,构造了一种Cell-based光滑有限元法模型(CS-FEM),并结合双向渐进结构优化法(BESO)实现了声子晶体的带隙最大化设计。基于四边形单元构造光滑子域,将梯度光滑技术与Bloch定理结合,构建了声子晶体能带结构计算的CS-FEM数值模型,并将其用于正问题的仿真模拟。在渐进优化准则下,通过BESO算法完成了声子晶体的优化设计。数值算例表明:CS-FEM能够适当软化离散系统的刚度,提供更加准确、高效的能带结构仿真结果;基于CS-FEM进行正问题的计算,在优化设计中得到了最优的拓扑构型,并有效地提高了优化效率,对于实现声子晶体的高效设计具有重要的参考价值。

基于新型快速收敛ES-FEM-T的三维固体黏弹塑性研究

虽然四面体网格具有强大的几何表征能力,但因其'过硬'特性而工程实践中较少采用。如何使四面体网格'变软'是目前数值计算研究重点。通过采用广义的应变光滑操作,对四面体网格采用一种新型基于四面体边的应变光滑方法(Edge-based smoothed finite element method of tetrahedron,ES-FEM-T),并将该方法拓展到三维固体中黏弹塑性材料分析中。数值算例表明:在相同的网格时,ES-FEM-T计算效率要高于有限元和基于面光滑操作的有限元。由于该方法既继承四面体强大的几何表征能力,具有较好的计算效率和精度,具有广阔的工程运用前景。

Multi-resolution technique integrated with smoothed particle element method (SPEM) for modeling fluid-structure interaction problems with free surfaces

Free-surface flows, especially those associated with fluid-structure interactions(FSIs), pose challenging problems in numerical simulations. The authors of this work recently developed a smoothed particle element method(SPEM) to simulate FSIs. In this method, both the fluid and solid regions are initially modeled using a smoothed finite element method(S-FEM) in a Lagrangian frame, whereas the fluid regions undergoing large deformations are adaptively converted into particles and modeled with an improved smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH) method. This approach greatly improves computational accuracy and efficiency because of the advantages of the S-FEM in efficiently treating solid/fluid regions showing small deformations and the SPH method in effectively modeling moving interfaces. In this work, we further enhance the efficiency of the SPEM while effectively capturing local fluid information by introducing a multi-resolution technique to the SPEM and developing an effective approach to treat multi-resolution element-particle interfaces. Various numerical examples demonstrate that the multiresolution SPEM can significantly reduce the computational cost relative to the original version with a constant resolution.Moreover, the novel approach is effective in modeling various incompressible flow problems involving FSIs.

基于多面体单元的三维ES-FEM理论研究

建立了基于多面体单元的三维光滑边域有限元法(ES-FEM-Poly),包括多面体单元中光滑域的划分方法、形函数的构造,以及几何矩阵、刚度矩阵的推导。同时利用Matlab软件编制了相应的计算程序,研究了空心球模型和梁模型在不同数量多面体单元下的应力分布,与常规四面体单元和六面体单元有限元计算结果通过应力相对误差和能量相对误差进行比较。研究结果表明,基于多面体网格的三维光滑边域有限元法相比常规有限元法具有更好的精度和收敛性,且对于复杂的几何结构也有较好的适应性。

Optimization of buckling load for laminated composite plates using adaptive Kriging-improved PSO:A novel hybrid intelligent method

An effective hybrid optimization method is proposed by integrating an adaptive Kriging(A-Kriging)into an improved partial swarm optimization algorithm(IPSO)to give a so-called A-Kriging-IPSO for maximizing the buckling load of laminated composite plates(LCPs)under uniaxial and biaxial compressions.In this method,a novel iterative adaptive Kriging model,which is structured using two training sample sets as active and adaptive points,is utilized to directly predict the buckling load of the LCPs and to improve the efficiency of the optimization process.The active points are selected from the initial data set while the adaptive points are generated using the radial random-based convex samples.The cell-based smoothed discrete shear gap method(CS-DSG3)is employed to analyze the buckling behavior of the LCPs to provide the response of adaptive and input data sets.The buckling load of the LCPs is maximized by utilizing the IPSO algorithm.To demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed methodology,the LCPs with different layers(2,3,4,and 10 layers),boundary conditions,aspect ratios and load patterns(biaxial and uniaxial loads)are investigated.The results obtained by proposed method are in good agreement with the literature results,but with less computational burden.By applying adaptive radial Kriging model,the accurate optimal resultsebased predictions of the buckling load are obtained for the studied LCPs.

A strain smoothing formulation for NURBS-based isogeometric finite element analysis

A strain smoothing formulation for NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) based isogeometric finite element analysis is presented. This approach is formulated within the framework of assumed strain methods and strain smoothing operations. The strain smoothing is defined through strain averaging in the element sub-domains which are subsequently used for numerical integration of the Galerkin weak form. This formulation satisfies the orthogonality condition of the assumed strain methods. Meanwhile the present formulation totally avoids the gradient computation of the rational NURBS basis functions in the formulation of stiffness matrix. A transformation method is employed to accurately enforce the displacement boundary conditions. Numerical results demonstrate that the present formation gives very satisfactory solution accuracy simultaneously with improved computational efficiency.

A stable CS-FEM for the static and seismic stability of a single square tunnel in the soil where the shear strength increases linearly with depth

A numerical procedure using a stable cell-based smoothed finite element method(CS-FEM)is presented for estimation of stability of a square tunnel in the soil where the shear strength increases linearly with depth.The kinematically admissible displacement fields are approximated by uniform quadrilateral elements in conjunction with the strain smoothing technique,eliminating volumetric locking issues and the singularity associated with the MohreCoulomb model.First,a rich set of simulations was performed to compute the static stability of a square tunnel with different geometries and soil conditions.The presented results are in excellent agreement with the upper and lower bound solutions using the standard finite element method(FEM).The stability charts and tables are given for practical use in the tunnel design,along with a newly proposed formulation for predicting the undrained stability of a single square tunnel.Second,the seismic stability number was computed using the present numerical approach.Numerical results reveal that the seismic stability number reduces with an increasing value of the horizontal seismic acceleration(a_(h)),for both cases of the weightless soil and the soil with unit weight.Third,the link between the static and seismic stability numbers is described using corrective factors that represent reductions in the tunnel stability due to seismic loadings.It is shown from the numerical results that the corrective factor becomes larger as the unit weight of soil mass increases;however,the degree of the reduction in seismic stability number tends to reduce for the case of the homogeneous soil.Furthermore,this advanced numerical procedure is straightforward to extend to three-dimensional(3D)limit analysis and is readily applicable for the calculation of the stability of tunnels in highly anisotropic and heterogeneous soils which are often encountered in practice.

压电分流阵列板复能带结构计算的ES-FEM方法

为了提高压电分流阵列板复能带结构的计算精度,构造一种基于Mindlin假设的边光滑有限元法(ES-FEM)数值模型。以单个原胞为研究对象,采用三角形单元对其进行离散。基于背景单元的各条边,进一步构造相应的光滑域,依托梯度光滑技术(GST)建立光滑应变场。最后通过建立离散系统方程并结合Bloch定理对复能带结构进行求解,并进一步探究电学参量对带隙的影响规律。研究结果表明:ES-FEM方法能够有效提高压电分流阵列板复能带结构的计算精度;电阻和电感等参数分别对局域共振带隙的衰减峰值和位置有显著影响,而对布拉格带隙则影响较小。

半无限板类声子晶体带隙仿真的PWE/NS-FEM方法

声子晶体是一种具有弹性波带隙的周期性功能材料,可以对在介质中传播的弹性波起到衰减作用,因此,在汽车减振降噪方面有极大的应用价值。文章针对现有数值方法求解半无限板类声子晶体的能带结构时计算复杂和精度低的缺陷,在传统有限元法的基础上引入梯度光滑技术,结合空间傅里叶级数展开理论,构造了平面波展开/点光滑有限元法数值模型。数值算例表明,对于半无限板类声子晶体,所构造方法能够适当软化离散系统刚度,提供更加精确、高效的能带结构仿真结果,在工业应用中有较大潜力。

一种适用宽速域冲击的明胶鸟弹数值建模方法

明胶鸟弹在不同撞击速度下表现出不同的响应特性。为解决传统明胶鸟弹本构表征方法在不同速度范围内不能通用的问题,开展了330 g明胶鸟弹以70~190 m/s速度、60°或90°入射刚性铝合金平板试验,记录了冲击力数据及撞击形貌。结果表明,随着撞击速度的提高,鸟弹碎裂得更充分,碎块体积减小。利用LS-DYNA建立了自适应FEM-SPH(finite element method-smoothed particle hydrodynamics)鸟体模型。依据试验结果反演得到一组鸟体本构参数:切线模量为1.33MPa,剪切模量为115.95MPa,Murnaghan状态方程参数γ为10.49,k_(0)为69.77 MPa,体积模量为246.4 MPa,失效塑性应变为1.15,初始屈服应力为0.21 MPa。仿真结果与试验结果具有很好的一致性,冲击力峰值的相对误差在2%以内,冲量的相对误差在10%以内。自适应FEM-SPH鸟体模型具有比SPH模型和拉格朗日模型更高的精度。由自适应模型得到的Hugoniot压强与理论结果具有相同的变化趋势,滞止压强与理论值较接近。