Fully Discrete Finite Element Approximations of a Polymer Gel Model

Abstract

This paper proposes and analyzes some fully discrete (multiphysics) finite element methods for a displacement-pressure model which describes swelling dynamics of polymer gels under mechanical constraints. By introducing an “elastic pressure” we first present a reformulation of the original model. We then propose a time-stepping scheme which decouples the PDE system at each time step into two subproblems, one of which is a Stokes-like problem for the displacement vector field (of the solid network of the gel) and the other is a diffusion problem for a “pseudopressure” field (of the solvent of the gel). To make such a multiphysics approach feasible, it is vital to find admissible constraints to resolve the uniqueness issue for the Stokes-like problem and to construct a good boundary condition for the diffusion equation so that it also becomes uniquely solvable. The key to the first difficulty is to discover certain conserved quantities for the PDE solution, and the solution to the second difficulty is to use the Stokes-like problem to generate a boundary condition for the diffusion problem. The time-stepping scheme allows one to use any convergent Stokes solver (and its code) together with any convergent diffusion equation solver (and its code) to solve the polymer gel model. In the paper, the Taylor–Hood mixed finite element method combined with the continuous linear finite element method are chosen as an example to present the ideas and to demonstrate the viability of the proposed multiphysics approach. It is proved that, under a mesh constraint, both the semidiscrete (in space) and fully discrete methods enjoy some discrete energy laws which mimic the differential energy law satisfied by the PDE solution. Optimal order error estimates in various norms are established for both semidiscrete and fully discrete methods. Numerical experiments are also presented to show the performance of the proposed approach and methods.