Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Research Articles

Time-domain room acoustic simulations with extended-reacting porous absorbers using the discontinuous Galerkin method.

This paper presents an equivalent fluid model (EFM) formulation in a three-dimensional time-domain discontinuous Galerkin finite element method framework for room acoustic simulations. Using the EFM allows for the modeling of the extended-reaction (ER) behavior of porous sound absorbers. The EFM is formulated in the numerical framework by using the method of auxiliary differential equations to account for the frequency dependent dissipation of the porous material. The formulation is validated analytically and an excellent agreement with the theory is found. Experimental validation for a single reflection case is also conducted, and it is shown that using the EFM improves the simulation accuracy when modeling a porous material backed by an air cavity as compared to using the local-reaction (LR) approximation. Last, a comparative study of different rooms with different porous absorbers is presented, using different boundary modeling techniques, namely, a LR approximation, a field-incidence (FI) approximation, or modeling the full ER behavior with the EFM. It is shown that using a LR or FI approximation leads to large and perceptually noticeable errors in simulated room acoustic parameters. The average T20 reverberation time error is 4.3 times the just-noticeable-difference (JND) threshold when using LR and 2.9 JND when using FI.

Fluid-structure interaction with H(div)-conforming finite elements

In this paper a novel application of the (high-order) H(div)-conforming Hybrid Discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for monolithic fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is presented. The Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) description is derived for H(div)-conforming finite elements including the Piola transformation, yielding exact divergence free fluid velocity solutions. The arising method is demonstrated by means of the benchmark problems proposed by Turek and Hron (2006). With hp-refinement strategies singularities and boundary layers are overcome leading to optimal spatial convergence rates.

Parallel discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for computing hyperbolic conservation law on unstructured meshes

PurposeThe discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (DGFEM) is very suited for realizing high order resolution approximations on unstructured grids for calculating the hyperbolic conservation law. However, it requires a significant amount of computing resources. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how to solve the Euler equations in parallel systems and improve the parallel performance.Design/methodology/approachDiscontinuous Galerkin discretization is used for the compressible inviscid Euler equations. The multi-level domain decomposition strategy was used to deal with the computational grids and ensure the calculation load balancing. The total variation diminishing (TVD) Runge–Kutta (RK) scheme coupled with the multigrid strategy was employed to further improve parallel efficiency. Moreover, the Newton Block Gauss–Seidel (GS) method was adopted to accelerate convergence and improve the iteration efficiency.FindingsNumerical experiments were implemented for the compressible inviscid flow problems around NACA0012 airfoil, over M6 wing and DLR-F6 configuration. The parallel acceleration is near to a linear convergence. The results indicate that the present parallel algorithm can reduce computational time significantly and allocate memory reasonably, which has high parallel efficiency and speedup, and it is well-suited to large-scale scientific computational problems on multiple instruction stream multiple data stream model.Originality/valueThe parallel DGFEM coupled with TVD RK and the Newton Block GS methods was presented for hyperbolic conservation law on unstructured meshes.

Upwinding and artificial viscosity for robust discontinuous Galerkin schemes of two-phase flow in mass conservation form

High-order discretizations have become increasingly popular across a wide range of applications, including reservoir simulation. However, the lack of stability and robustness of these discretizations for advection-dominant problems prevent them from being widely adopted. This paper presents work towards improving the stability and robustness of the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element scheme, for advection-dominant two-phase flow problems in particular. A linearized analysis of the two-phase flow equations is used to show that a standard DG discretization of the two-phase flow equations in mass conservation form results in a neutrally stable semi-discrete system in the advection-dominant limit. Furthermore, the analysis is also used to propose additional terms to the DG method which linearly stabilize the discretization. These additional terms are derived by comparing the linearized equations in mass conservation form against an upwinded pressure-saturation form of the equations. Next, a partial differential equation-based artificial viscosity method is proposed for the Buckley-Leverett and two-phase flow equations, as a means of mitigating Gibbs oscillations in high-order discretizations and ensuring convergence to physical solutions. The modified DG method with artificial viscosity is demonstrated on a two-phase flow problem with heterogeneous rock permeabilities, where the high-order discretizations significantly outperform a conventional first-order approach in terms of computational cost required to achieve a given level of error in an output of interest.

A higher-order finite element reactive transport model for unstructured and fractured grids

This work presents a new reactive transport framework that combines a powerful geochemistry engine with advanced numerical methods for flow and transport in subsurface fractured porous media. Specifically, the PhreeqcRM interface (developed by the USGS) is used to take advantage of a large library of equilibrium and kinetic aqueous and fluid-rock reactions, which has been validated by numerous experiments and benchmark studies. Fluid flow is modeled by the Mixed Hybrid Finite Element (FE) method, which provides smooth velocity fields even in highly heterogenous formations with discrete fractures. A multilinear Discontinuous Galerkin FE method is used to solve the multicomponent transport problem. This method is locally mass conserving and its second order convergence significantly reduces numerical dispersion. In terms of thermodynamics, the aqueous phase is considered as a compressible fluid and its properties are derived from a Cubic Plus Association (CPA) equation of state. The new simulator is validated against several benchmark problems (involving, e.g., Fickian and Nernst-Planck diffusion, isotope fractionation, advection-dispersion transport, and rock-fluid reactions) before demonstrating the expanded capabilities offered by the underlying FE foundation, such as high computational efficiency, parallelizability, low numerical dispersion, unstructured 3D gridding, and discrete fraction modeling.

A hyperbolic reformulation of the Serre-Green-Naghdi model for general bottom topographies

We present a novel hyperbolic reformulation of the Serre-Green-Naghdi (SGN) model for the description of dispersive water waves. Contrarily to the classical Boussinesq-type models, it contains only first order derivatives, thus allowing to overcome the numerical difficulties arising from higher order derivative terms, especially in the context of high order discontinuous Galerkin finite element schemes. The proposed model reduces to the original SGN model when an artificial sound speed tends to infinity. Moreover, it is endowed with an extra conservation law from which the energy-type conservation law associated with the original SGN model is retrieved when the artificial sound speed goes to infinity. In order to provide a theoretical basis for the proposed model, a derivation from the vertical average of the compressible Euler equations has been proposed. The governing partial differential equations are then solved at the aid of high order ADER discontinuous Galerkin finite element schemes. The new model has been successfully validated against numerical and experimental results, for both flat and non-flat bottom. For bottom topographies with large variations, the new model proposed in this paper provides more accurate results with respect to the hyperbolic reformulation of the SGN model with the mild bottom approximation recently proposed in [1].

A conservative discontinuous Galerkin discretization for the chemically reacting Navier-Stokes equations

We present a detailed description and verification of a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (DG) for the multi-component chemically reacting compressible Navier-Stokes equations that retains the desirable properties of DG, namely discrete conservation and high-order accuracy in smooth regions of the flow. Pressure equilibrium between adjacent elements is maintained through the consistent evaluation of the thermodynamics model and the resulting weak form, as well as the proper choice of nodal basis. As such, the discretization does not generate unphysical pressure oscillations in smooth regions of the flow or at material interfaces where the temperature is continuous. Additionally, we present an hp-adaptive DG method for solving systems of ordinary differential equations, DGODE, which is used to resolve the temporal evolution of the species concentrations due to stiff chemical reactions. The coupled solver is applied to several challenging test problems including multi-component shocked flows as well as chemically reacting detonations, deflagrations, and shear flows with detailed kinetics. We demonstrate that the discretization does not produce unphysical pressure oscillations and, when applicable, we verify that it maintains discrete conservation. The solver is also shown to reproduce the expected temperature and species profiles throughout a detonation as well as the expected two-dimensional cellular detonation structure. We also demonstrate that the solver can produce accurate, high-order, approximations of temperature and species profiles without artificial stabilization for the case of a one-dimensional pre-mixed flame. Finally, high-order solutions of two- and three-dimensional multi-component chemically reacting shear flows, computed without any additional stabilization, are presented.

Exponential convergence of mixed hp-DGFEM for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in ℝ2

Abstract In a polygon $\varOmega \subset \mathbb{R}^2$ we consider mixed $hp$-discontinuous Galerkin approximations of the stationary, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, subject to no-slip boundary conditions. We use geometrically corner-refined meshes and $hp$ spaces with linearly increasing polynomial degrees. Based on recent results on analytic regularity of velocity field and pressure of Leray solutions in $\varOmega$, we prove exponential rates of convergence of the mixed $hp$-discontinuous Galerkin finite element method, with respect to the number of degrees of freedom, for small data which is piecewise analytic.

Space-angle discontinuous Galerkin method for radiative transfer between concentric cylinders

The integro-differential radiative transfer equation (RTE) for concentric cylinders problem involving scattering, absorption and emission is solved using the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method (FEM). The space-angle DG method directly solves the cylindrically-symmetric RTE as a three-dimensional problem, where a 1D spatially domain in radial distance r is twice extruded in the cosine of polar angle (μ) and the difference in azimuthal angle (φ˜) directions. Thus, the method has a higher accuracy than hybrid FEM-Discrete Ordinate (SN) and FEM-Spherical Harmonic (PN) methods. This is reflected by numerically verified convergence rate of p+1 for smooth problems and space-angle polynomial interpolation order of p. The axisymmetric RTE formulation is more complicated than the plane-parallel formulation, for having two independent angle directions (μ and φ˜) and an extra derivative term with respect to φ˜ in the differential equation. This results in a complex characteristic structure in r−φ˜ plane with strong discontinuity lines in radiation intensity I. A method of characteristics is formulated and implemented to verify the DG formulation and demonstrate its accuracy when such strong discontinuities persist in the solution, specifically when there are no scattering and absorption terms. The relaxation of inter-element continuity constraint of continuous FEMs by this DG method implies its superiority in numerically capturing such discontinuities. Finally, a benchmark problem pertained to heat radiation in a gray gas and another one with nonzero phase function demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in modeling black-body and scattering angular integration terms.

Accelerating CFD solver computation time with reduced‐order modeling in a multigrid environment

SummaryReduced‐order models (ROMs) are more and more considered for use in aerodynamic applications. Benefits of these methods can be expected for optimization problems or predicting aerodynamic loads for the entire flight envelope. For these applications it is often possible to perform computations for various parameter combinations before any ROM evaluations are needed. The order reduction of the CFD solutions in this article is done using proper orthogonal decomposition. Coupled with an interpolation method predictions for unknown parameter combinations can be made. The CFD solutions are computed using a discontinuous Galerkin finite element method combined with a nonlinear multigrid scheme. The nonlinear multigrid solver algorithms depend on a good initial guess of the flow field to be computed. Typically, the initial guess on a fine mesh is obtained by solving the problem on a agglomerated mesh. Alternatively, an initial guess could be obtained from a ROM prediction, if available. The main objective is to identify the benefits of using a ROM in a higher‐order multigrid environment. Integral as well as distributed surface quantities of the ROM predictions originating from several multigrid levels will be compared with fully converged flow solutions on the top level of the multigrid algorithm. Furthermore, initializing the flow solver with predictions from several multigrid levels will be analyzed in comparison to full multigrid computations as well as to a scenario where already converged solutions for similar parameter combinations are used as initial flow solutions on the top multigrid level.

High order ADER-DG schemes for the simulation of linear seismic waves induced by nonlinear dispersive free-surface water waves

In this paper, we propose a unified and high order accurate fully-discrete one-step ADER Discontinuous Galerkin method for the simulation of linear seismic waves in the sea bottom that are generated by the propagation of free surface water waves. In particular, a hyperbolic reformulation of the Serre-Green-Naghdi model for nonlinear dispersive free surface flows is coupled with a first order velocity-stress formulation for linear elastic wave propagation in the sea bottom. To this end, Cartesian non-conforming meshes are defined in the solid and fluid domains and the coupling is achieved by an appropriate time-dependent pressure boundary condition in the three-dimensional domain for the elastic wave propagation, where the pressure is a combination of hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic pressure in the water column above the sea bottom. The use of a first order hyperbolic reformulation of the nonlinear dispersive free surface flow model leads to a straightforward coupling with the linear seismic wave equations, which are also written in first order hyperbolic form. It furthermore allows the use of explicit time integrators with a rather generous CFL-type time step restriction associated with the dispersive water waves, compared to numerical schemes applied to classical dispersive models that contain higher order derivatives and typically require implicit solvers. Since the two systems that describe the seismic waves and the free surface water waves are written in the same form of a first order hyperbolic system they can also be efficiently solved in a unique numerical framework. In this paper we choose the family of arbitrary high order accurate discontinuous Galerkin finite element schemes, which have already shown to be suitable for the numerical simulation of wave propagation problems. The developed methodology is carefully assessed by first considering several benchmarks for each system separately, i.e. in the framework of linear elasticity and non-hydrostatic free surface flows, showing a good agreement with exact and numerical reference solutions. Finally, also coupled test cases are addressed. Throughout this paper we assume the elastic deformations in the solid to be sufficiently small so that their influence on the free surface water waves can be neglected.

Sweep-Net: An Artificial Neural Network for radiation transport solves

Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Methods (DGFEM) have been widely used for solving SN radiation transport problems in participative and non-participative media. Global matrices are not assembled when sweeping through the computational domain, but only small matrix-vector systems are assembled and solved for each cell, angle, energy group, and time step (e.g., systems with 8 independent equations for tri-linear DGFEM in 3D hexahedral cells). These systems are generally solved directly using Gaussian elimination. The computational cost of assembling and solving these local systems, repeated for each cell in the phase-space, can amount to a large fraction of the total computation time. Therefore, a Machine Learning algorithm is designed in this paper, based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), to replace the assembling and solution of the local systems, enabling a sizable speed up in the solution process. The key idea is to train an ANN with a large set of solutions to random one-cell transport problems and, then, replace the assembling and solution of the local systems by the feedforward evaluation of the trained ANN in large-scale transport solvers. These ANNs are optimized to reproduce the solutions obtained in radiation transport solves, while minimizing the number of operations involved in its feedforward evaluation. It is observed that the optimized ANNs are able to reduce the compute times by a factor of ∼3.6 per source iteration, while introducing mean absolute errors between 0.5−2% in transport solutions.

Mesh quality metrics for isogeometric Bernstein–Bézier discretizations

High-order finite element methods harbor the potential to deliver improved accuracy per degree of freedom versus low-order methods. Their success, however, hinges upon the use of a curvilinear mesh of not only sufficiently high accuracy but also sufficiently high quality. In this paper, theoretical results are presented quantifying the impact of mesh parameterization on the accuracy of a high-order finite element approximation, and a formal definition of shape regularity is introduced for curvilinear meshes based on these results. This formal definition of shape regularity in turn inspires a new set of quality metrics for curvilinear finite elements. Computable bounds are established for these quality metrics using the Bernstein–Bézier form, and a new curvilinear mesh optimization procedure is proposed based on these bounds. Numerical results confirming the importance of shape regularity in the context of high-order finite element methods are presented, and numerical results demonstrating the promise of the proposed curvilinear mesh optimization procedure are also provided. The theoretical results in this paper apply to any piecewise-polynomial or piecewise-rational finite element method posed on a mesh of polynomial or rational mapped simplices and hypercubes. As such, they apply not only to classical continuous Galerkin finite element methods but also to discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods and even isogeometric methods based on NURBS, T-splines, or hierarchical B-splines.

Space-time adaptive ADER discontinuous Galerkin schemes for nonlinear hyperelasticity with material failure

We are concerned with the numerical solution of a unified first order hyperbolic formulation of continuum mechanics that goes back to the work of Godunov, Peshkov and Romenski [65,68,97] (GPR model) and which is an extension of nonlinear hyperelasticity that is able to describe simultaneously nonlinear elasto-plastic solids at large strain, as well as viscous and ideal fluids. The proposed governing PDE system also contains the effect of heat conduction and can be shown to be symmetric and thermodynamically compatible, as it obeys the first and second law of thermodynamics. In this paper we extend the GPR model to the simulation of nonlinear dynamic rupture processes, which can be achieved by adding an additional scalar to the governing PDE system. This extra parameter describes the material damage and is governed by an advection-reaction equation, where the stiff and highly nonlinear reaction mechanisms depend on the ratio of the local equivalent stress to the yield stress of the material. The stiff reaction mechanisms are integrated in time via an efficient exponential time integrator. Due to the multiple spatial and temporal scales involved in the problem of crack generation and propagation, the model is solved on space–time adaptive Cartesian meshes using high order accurate discontinuous Galerkin finite element schemes endowed with an a posteriori subcell finite volume limiter. A key feature of our new model is the use of a twofold diffuse interface approach that allows the cracks to form anywhere and at any time, independently of the chosen computational grid, which is simply adaptive Cartesian (AMR). This is substantially different from many fracture modeling approaches that need to resolve discontinuities explicitly, such as for example dynamic shear rupture models used in computational seismology, where the geometry of the rupture fault needs to prescribed a priori. We furthermore make use of a scalar volume fraction function α that indicates whether a given spatial point is inside the solid (α=1) or outside (α=0), thus allowing the description of solids of arbitrarily complex shape. We show extensive numerical comparisons with experimental results for stress-strain diagrams of different real materials and for the generation and propagation of fracture in rocks and pyrex glass at low and high velocities. Overall, a very good agreement between numerical simulations and experiments is obtained. The proposed model is also naturally able to describe material fatigue.

A DG-based interface element method for modeling hydraulic fracturing in porous media

Fracture propagation coupled with fluid flow in porous media has very important applications in fracking in oil and gas reservoirs, corrosion in ceramics, and degradation of human bones. Modeling fracture failure in porous media governed by the coupled solid and fluid field equations is challenging and time-consuming. This paper extends discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element methods to model crack openings in porous media through exploiting an easy construction of interfaces for potential crack paths by locally breaking continuous elements. Consequently, a finite element mesh for fracture apertures is completely and gracefully constructed using DG interface objects as well as the definitions of jumps of displacements across the DG interfaces defined for bulk matrices. Furthermore, rigid cohesive laws often adopted for crack openings can be naturally implemented in DG formulations without introducing artificial stiffness, which may eventually improve the performance for implicit formulations in handling crack openings in porous media. In this work, we perform a consistent, fully implicit, and fully coupled hybrid DG/continuous finite element formulation for three field equations including the solid, bulk fluid, and fluid in fracture apertures resulting from crack openings. We verify our DG formulation and implementation using the Khristianovich-Geertsma-DeKlerk analytical solutions. Finally, we further demonstrate a good performance of the proposed DG method by modeling fracking in an oil reservoir containing two nature fractures.

Analysis of optimal superconvergence of the local discontinuous Galerkin method for nonlinear fourth-order boundary value problems

This paper is concerned with the convergence and superconvergence of the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) finite element method for nonlinear fourth-order boundary value problems of the type $u^{(4)}=f(x,u,u^{\prime },u^{\prime \prime },u^{\prime \prime \prime })$ , x ∈ [a,b] with classical boundary conditions at the endpoints. Convergence properties for the solution and for all three auxiliary variables are established. More specifically, we use the duality argument to prove that the errors between the LDG solutions and the exact solutions in the L2 norm achieve optimal (p + 1)th-order convergence, when polynomials of degree p are used. We also prove that the derivatives of the errors between the LDG solutions and Gauss-Radau projections of the exact solutions in the L2 norm are superconvergent with order p + 1. Furthermore, a (2p + 1)th-order superconvergent for the errors of the numerical fluxes at mesh nodes as well as for the cell averages is also obtained under quasi-uniform meshes. Finally, we prove that the LDG solutions are superconvergent with an order of p + 2 toward particular projections of the exact solutions. The error analysis presented in this paper is valid for p ≥ 1. Numerical experiments indicate that our theoretical findings are optimal.

A multi-physics solver for liquid-fueled fast systems based on the discontinuous Galerkin FEM discretization

Performing accurate numerical simulations of molten salt reactors is challenging, especially in case of fast-spectrum designs, due to the unique physics phenomena characterizing these systems. The limitations of codes traditionally used in the nuclear community often require the development of novel high-fidelity multi-physics tools to advance the design of these innovative reactors. In this work, we present the most recent code developed at Delft University of Technology for multi-physics simulations of liquid-fueled fast reactors. The coupling is realized between an incompressible RANS model and an SN neutron transport solver. The models are implemented in two in-house codes, based on the discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element discretization, which guarantees high-quality of the solution. We report and discuss the results of preliminary simulations of the Molten Salt Fast Reactor at steady-state and during a Total Loss of Power transient. Results prove our code has capabilities for steady-state and transient analysis of non-moderated liquid-fueled reactors.

Continuous Galerkin and Enriched Galerkin Methods with Arbitrary Order Discontinuous Trial Functions for the Elliptic and Parabolic Problems with Jump Conditions

In this paper, a new version of the enriched Galerkin (EG) method for elliptic and parabolic equations is presented and analyzed, which is capable of dealing with a jump condition along a submanifold $${\Gamma _{\text {LG}}}$$ . The jump condition is known as Henry’s law in a stationary diffusion process. Here, the novel EG finite element method is constructed by enriching the continuous Galerkin finite element space by not only piecewise constants but also with piecewise polynomials with an arbitrary order. In addition, we extend the proposed method to consider new versions of a continuous Galerkin (CG) and a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method. The presented uniform analyses for CG, DG, and EG account for a spatially and temporally varying diffusion tensor which is also allowed to have a jump at $${\Gamma _{\text {LG}}}$$ and gives optimal convergence results. Several numerical experiments verify the presented analyses and illustrate the capability of the proposed methods.

Local Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Nonlinear Time-Space Fractional Subdiffusion/Superdiffusion Equations

Fractional partial differential equations with time-space fractional derivatives describe some important physical phenomena. For example, the subdiffusion equation (time order 0<α<1) is more suitable to describe the phenomena of charge carrier transport in amorphous semiconductors, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) diffusometry in percolative, Rouse, or reptation dynamics in polymeric systems, the diffusion of a scalar tracer in an array of convection rolls, or the dynamics of a bead in a polymeric network, and so on. However, the superdiffusion case (1<α<2) is more accurate to depict the special domains of rotating flows, collective slip diffusion on solid surfaces, layered velocity fields, Richardson turbulent diffusion, bulk-surface exchange controlled dynamics in porous glasses, the transport in micelle systems and heterogeneous rocks, quantum optics, single molecule spectroscopy, the transport in turbulent plasma, bacterial motion, and even for the flight of an albatross (for more physical applications of fractional sub-super diffusion equations, one can see Metzler and Klafter in 2000). In this work, we establish two fully discrete numerical schemes for solving a class of nonlinear time-space fractional subdiffusion/superdiffusion equations by using backward Euler difference 1<α<2 or second-order central difference 1<α<2/local discontinuous Galerkin finite element mixed method. By introducing the mathematical induction method, we show the concrete analysis for the stability and the convergence rate under the L2 norm of the two LDG schemes. In the end, we adopt several numerical experiments to validate the proposed model and demonstrate the features of the two numerical schemes, such as the optimal convergence rate in space direction is close to Ohk+1. The convergence rate in time direction can arrive at Oτ2−α when the fractional derivative is 0<α<1. If the fractional derivative parameter is 1<α<2 and we choose the relationship as h=C′τ (h denotes the space step size, C′ is a constant, and τ is the time step size), then the time convergence rate can reach to Oτ3−α. The experiment results illustrate that the proposed method is effective in solving nonlinear time-space fractional subdiffusion/superdiffusion equations.

Discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods for the Landau–de Gennes minimization problem of liquid crystals

Abstract We consider a system of second-order nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations that models the equilibrium configurations of a two-dimensional planar bistable nematic liquid crystal device. Discontinuous Galerkin (dG) finite element methods are used to approximate the solutions of this nonlinear problem with nonhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. A discrete inf–sup condition demonstrates the stability of the dG discretization of a well-posed linear problem. We then establish the existence and local uniqueness of the discrete solution of the nonlinear problem. A priori error estimates in the energy and $\mathbf{L}^2$ norms are derived and a best approximation property is demonstrated. Further, we prove the quadratic convergence of the Newton iterates along with complementary numerical experiments.