Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields

Mixed Finite Element Approximation

Elasticity and Plate Equations

Efficient finite element methods for a three-field

formulation

Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected]

School of Information and Physical Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Newcastle, Australia

Computational Techniques and Applications Conference (CTAC-2022)

29 November–2 December, 2022

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

A Three-Field Mixed Formulation

1 Q, V and W are three Hilbert spaces

2 a : [V, Q] × [V, Q] → R and b : [V, Q] × W → R are two continuous bilinear
forms.
3 F (·) and G(·) are two continuous linear forms on V and W .

Problem
Find a minimum over V × Q of the functional
1
J([u, p]) = a([u, p], [u, p]) − F (u) (1)
2
subject to the constraint

b([u, p], µ) = G(µ), µ ∈ W. (2)

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Existence and Uniqueness Theorem

Let Z be a closed subspace of V defined as (often known as kernel space)

Z = {[v, q] ∈ [V, Q] : b([v, q], µ) = 0, µ ∈ W }. (3)

Theorem (Brezzi’s splitting theorem)

The saddle point problem has a unique solution if and only if
1 Continuity
2 Coercivity on the kernel space Z
3 The bilinear form b(·, ·) satisfies the inf-sup condition: What we need is the
existence of β > 0 such that

b([v, q], µ)
sup ≥ β∥µ∥W , µ ∈ W. (4)
[v,q]∈[V,Q] ∥[v, q]∥[V,Q]

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Mixed Finite Elements

Choose three finite element spaces Qh ⊂ Q, Vh ⊂ V and Wh ⊂ W such that the
discrete problem is
Problem
Find (uh , ph , λh ) ∈ Vh × Qh × Wh such that

a([uh , ph ], [v, q]) + b([v, q], µh ) = F (v), [v, q] ∈ Vh × Qh ,

(5)
b([uh , ph ], µ) = G(µ), µ ∈ Wh .

Most often, the second equation can be written as

Z Z
ph µh dx = H(uh ) µh dx, µh ∈ Wh .
| Ω {z } Ω

Choose the bases for Qh and Wh , which are biorthogonal. The matrix for
Z
ph µh dx is diagonal.
| Ω {z }
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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Boundary Value Problem of Linear Elasticity

Let the material body be an isotropic linear elastic body. The
deformation is governed by the equilibrium equation and Saint-
Venant Kirchhoff material law:

− div σ = f in Ω (6)
σ = Cϵ(u).

σ ∈ [L2 (Ω)]d×d : Cauchy stress, ϵ(u) := 12 (∇u + [∇u]t ) is the strain

C is the Hooke’s tensor and C applied to a tensor d ∈ [L2 (Ω)]d×d yields

Cd := λ(tr d)1 + 2µ d,

where λ and µ are Lamé constants.

The boundary conditions are: u = 0 on ΓD and σ n = g N on ΓN . And n is
the outer normal vector on the boundary of Ω.
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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Boundary Value Problem of Linear Elasticity

Let the material body be an isotropic linear elastic body. The
deformation is governed by the equilibrium equation and Saint-
Venant Kirchhoff material law:

− div σ = f in Ω (6)
σ = Cϵ(u).

σ ∈ [L2 (Ω)]d×d : Cauchy stress, ϵ(u) := 12 (∇u + [∇u]t ) is the strain

C is the Hooke’s tensor and C applied to a tensor d ∈ [L2 (Ω)]d×d yields

Cd := λ(tr d)1 + 2µ d,

where λ and µ are Lamé constants.

The boundary conditions are: u = 0 on ΓD and σ n = g N on ΓN . And n is
the outer normal vector on the boundary of Ω.
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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Standard Weak Formulation

The standard weak formulation is to find the minimum of the functional

Z
1
J(u) = ϵ(u) : Cϵ(u) dx − F (u),
2 Ω

over a suitable function space V , where

Z Z
F (u) = f · v dx + g N · v dx.
Ω ΓN

For nearly incompressible materials, λ is very large: d ∈ [L2 (Ω)]d×d yields

Cd := λ(tr d)1 + 2µ d.

This leads to very slow convergence and resulting in a “volumetric locking”.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

A Three-Field Formulation

Introduce d = ϵ(u) to get a new functional

Z
1
K([u, d]) = d : Cd dx − F (u).
2 Ω

Our problem is to minimise K(·) subject to the constraint

Z
(d − ϵ(u)) : τ dx = 0, τ ∈ W,
Ω

where W is the Lagrange multiplier space.

Three fields: displacement u, strain d and stress σ.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

A Three-Field Formulation

Writing the constraint as

Z Z
d : τ dx = ϵ(u) : τ dx, τ ∈W
Ω Ω
R
Get a diagonal matrix for the bilinear form Ω
d : τ dx by using a biorthogonal
system to approximate d and τ
This leads to a very efficient way of projecting ϵ(uh ) onto the approximation
space for d with dh = Ph ϵ(uh ).

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Biorthogonality and Operator Ph

1 Let Sh be a standard finite element space.

2 Construct the projection Ph : L2 (Ω) → Sh using a biorthogonal system:
Z Z
Ph v µ dx = vµ dx, µ ∈ Wh .
Ω Ω

3 Biorthogonal system: the basis functions {µ1 , µ2 , · · · , µn } of Wh and the basis

functions {φ1 , φ2 , · · · , φn } of Sh form a biorthogonal system if
Z (
ci if i = j
µi φj dx = cj δij = (7)
Ω 0 else

Here δij is the Kronecker symbol, and cj a positive scaling factor.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Biorthogonality and Operator Ph

1 The resulting discrete scheme avoids locking if it is stable.

R
2 Biorthogonality ⇒ the mass matrix D ( Ω µh ϕh dx) is diagonal.
3 Construction of basis functions of Wh can be done on a reference element.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Biorthogonality and Operator Ph

1 The new problem is to minimise the functional

Z
1
Ph ϵ(uh ) : CPh ϵ(uh ) dx − F (uh )
2 Ω

over an approximation space V h ⊂ V . should be stabilised

2 We can have a new formulation
Z
1
2µϵ(uh ) : ϵ(uh ) + λ(Ph div uh )2 dx − F (uh )
 
2 Ω

over an approximation space V h ⊂ V . this is stable.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Numerical Results with Simplicial Meshes: Cook’s

Membrane

48
T
16 100N

44

Problem setting (left), deformation (middle) Vertical tip displacement at T versus

number of elements (right) “mini” is non-biorthogonal version and is more expensive.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Numerical Results with Simplicial Meshes: Rectangular

Beam

f
l

Problem setting (left), L2 error (middle) H 1 error (right)

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Reissner-Mindlin Problem
A stable finite element method for the Reissner-Mindlin problem is to find
(ϕh , uh ) ∈ V h × Sh such that

ah (ϕh , uh ; ψ h , vh ) = ℓ(vh ), (ψ h , vh ) ∈ V h × Sh , (8)

where
Z
ah (ϕh , uh ; ψ h , vh ) = Cϵ(ϕh ) : ϵ(ψ h ) dx +
ZΩ
λ (ϕh − ∇uh ) · (ψ h − ∇vh ) dx +
Ω
λ(1 − t2 )
Z
Ph (ϕh − ∇uh ) · Ph (ψ h − ∇vh ) dx, (9)
t2 Ω

where Ph is as defined above. A very small plate thickness parameter t leads to

locking if we do not use the projection Ph .
Three fields: the vertical displacement uh , the rotation of the transverse normal
vector ϕh and Lagrange multiplier (eliminated due to biorthogonality) NUlogo

Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Numerical Example
1 This is a well-known classical numerical example from Timoshenko and Goodier [1970] for a clamped plate.
2 A thin plate of dimension 2mm × 2mm × 0.01mm is considered.
3 The plate is clamped along the complete boundary, and it is subjected to a uniformly distributed pressure of
−100 N/mm2 on the top surface in z-direction.
4 A linear elastic material is considered with Young’s modulus E = 1.7472 × 107 N/mm2 and Poisson’s ratio
ν = 0.3.

Figure: The vertical displacement at the mid-point of the plate versus the number of
elements (left) and versus the plate thickness (right)
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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation
 Saddle Point Problem with Three Fields
Mixed Finite Element Approximation
Elasticity and Plate Equations

Finally

Thank you.

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Bishnu P. Lamichhane, [email protected] Efficient finite element methods for a three-field formulation