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Author: Merdon, Christian × Subject: mixed finite elements ×

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Guaranteed upper bounds for the velocity error of pressure-robust Stokes discretisations
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Lederer, Philip Lukas; Merdon, Christian
    This paper improves guaranteed error control for the Stokes problem with a focus on pressure-robustness, i.e. for discretisations that compute a discrete velocity that is independent of the exact pressure. A Prager-Synge type result relates the errors of divergence-free primal and H(div)-conforming dual mixed methods (for the velocity gradient) with an equilibration constraint that needs special care when discretised. To relax the constraints on the primal and dual method, a more general result is derived that enables the use of a recently developed mass conserving mixed stress discretisation to design equilibrated fluxes that yield pressure-independent guaranteed upper bounds for any pressure-robust (but not necessarily divergence-free) primal discretisation. Moreover, a provably efficient local design of the equilibrated fluxes is presented that reduces the numerical costs of the error estimator. All theoretical findings are verified by numerical examples which also show that the efficiency indices of our novel guaranteed upper bounds for the velocity error are close to 1.
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    On the divergence constraint in mixed finite element methods for incompressible flows
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) John, Volker; Linke, Alexander; Merdon, Christian; Neilan, Michael; Rebholz, Leo G.
    The divergence constraint of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations is revisited in the mixed finite element framework. While many stable and convergent mixed elements have been developed throughout the past four decades, most classical methods relax the divergence constraint and only enforce the condition discretely. As a result, these methods introduce a pressure-dependent consistency error which can potentially pollute the computed velocity. These methods are not robust in the sense that a contribution from the right-hand side, which in fluences only the pressure in the continuous equations, impacts both velocity and pressure in the discrete equations. This paper reviews the theory and practical implications of relaxing the divergence constraint. Several approaches for improving the discrete mass balance or even for computing divergence-free solutions will be discussed: grad-div stabilization, higher order mixed methods derived on the basis of an exact de Rham complex, H(div)-conforming finite elements, and mixed methods with an appropriate reconstruction of the test functions. Numerical examples illustrate both the potential effects of using non-robust discretizations and the improvements obtained by utilizing pressure-robust discretizations.
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    Divergence-free reconstruction operators for pressure-robust Stokes discretizations with continuous pressure finite elements
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2016) Lederer, Philip L.; Linke, Alexander; Merdon, Christian; Schöberl, Joachim
    Classical inf-sup stable mixed finite elements for the incompressible (Navier-)Stokes equations are not pressure-robust, i.e., their velocity errors depend on the continuous pressure. However, a modification only in the right hand side of a Stokes discretization is able to reestablish pressure-robustness, as shown recently for several inf-sup stable Stokes elements with discontinuous discrete pressures. In this contribution, this idea is extended to low and high order Taylor-Hood and mini elements, which have continuous discrete pressures. For the modification of the right hand side a velocity reconstruction operator is constructed that maps discretely divergence-free test functions to exactly divergence-free ones. The reconstruction is based on local H (div)-conforming flux equilibration on vertex patches, and fulfills certain orthogonality properties to provide consistency and optimal a-priori error estimates. Numerical examples for the incompressible Stokes and Navier-Stokes equations confirm that the new pressure-robust Taylor-Hood and mini elements converge with optimal order and outperform significantly the classical versions of those elements when the continuous pressure is comparably large.
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    Optimal L2 velocity error estimate for a modified pressure-robust Crouzeix-Raviart Stokes element
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Linke, Alexander; Merdon, Christian; Wollner, Winnifried
    Recently, a novel approach for the robust discretization of the incompressible Stokes equations was proposed that slightly modifies the nonconforming Crouzeix-Raviart element such that its velocity error becomes pressure-independent. The modification results in an O(h) consistency error that allows straightforward proofs for the optimal convergence of the discrete energy norm of the velocity and of the L2 norm of the pressure. However, though the optimal convergence of the velocity in the L2 norm was observed numerically, it appeared to be nontrivial to prove. In this contribution, this gap is closed. Moreover, the dependence of the energy error estimates on the discrete inf-sup constant is traced in detail, which shows that classical error estimates are extremely pessimistic on domains with large aspect ratios. Numer-ical experiments in 2D and 3D illustrate the theoretical findings.
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    Inverse modeling of thin layer flow cells for detection of solubility, transport and reaction coefficients from experimental data
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Fuhrmann, Jürgen; Linke, Alexander; Merdon, Christian; Neumann, Felix; Streckenbach, Timo; Baltruschat, Helmut; Khodayari, Mehdi
    Thin layer flow cells are used in electrochemical research as experimental devices which allow to perform investigations of electrocatalytic surface reactions under controlled conditions using reasonably small electrolyte volumes. The paper introduces a general approach to simulate the complete cell using accurate numerical simulation of the coupled flow, transport and reaction processes in a flow cell. The approach is based on a mass conservative coupling of a divergence-free finite element method for fluid flow and a stable finite volume method for mass transport. It allows to perform stable and efficient forward simulations that comply with the physical bounds namely mass conservation and maximum principles for the involved species. In this context, several recent approaches to obtain divergence-free velocities from finite element simulations are discussed. In order to perform parameter identification, the forward simulation method is coupled to standard optimization tools. After an assessment of the inverse modeling approach using known real-istic data, first results of the identification of solubility and transport data for O2 dissolved in organic electrolytes are presented. A plausibility study for a more complex situation with surface reactions concludes the paper and shows possible extensions of the scope of the presented numerical tools.
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    Refined a posteriori error estimation for classical and pressure-robust Stokes finite element methods
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Lederer, Philip Lukas; Merdon, Christian; Schöberl, Joachim
    Recent works showed that pressure-robust modifications of mixed finite element methods for the Stokes equations outperform their standard versions in many cases. This is achieved by divergence-free reconstruction operators and results in pressure-independent velocity error estimates which are robust with respect to small viscosities. In this paper we develop a posteriori error control which reflects this robustness. The main difficulty lies in the volume contribution of the standard residual-based approach that includes the L2-norm of the right-hand side. However, the velocity is only steered by the divergence-free part of this source term. An efficient error estimator must approximate this divergence-free part in a proper manner, otherwise it can be dominated by the pressure error. To overcome this difficulty a novel approach is suggested that uses arguments from the stream function and vorticity formulation of the NavierStokes equations. The novel error estimators only take the curl of the righthand side into account and so lead to provably reliable, efficient and pressure-independent upper bounds in case of a pressure-robust method in particular in pressure-dominant situations. This is also confirmed by some numerical examples with the novel pressure-robust modifications of the TaylorHood and mini finite element methods.