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Solution verification for explicit transient dynamics problems in the presence of hourglass and contact forces

Proposed for publication in Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering Journal.

Stewart, James R.

This paper presents solution verification studies applicable to a class of problems involving wave propagation, frictional contact, geometrical complexity, and localized incompressibility. The studies are in support of a validation exercise of a phenomenological screw failure model. The numerical simulations are performed using a fully explicit transient dynamics finite element code, employing both standard four-node tetrahedral and eight-node mean quadrature hexahedral elements. It is demonstrated that verifying the accuracy of the simulation involves not only consideration of the mesh discretization error, but also the effect of the hourglass control and the contact enforcement. In particular, the proper amount of hourglass control and the behavior of the contact search and enforcement algorithms depend greatly on the mesh resolution. We carry out the solution verification exercise using mesh refinement studies and describe our systematic approach to handling the complicating issues. It is shown that hourglassing and contact must both be carefully monitored as the mesh is refined, and it is often necessary to make adjustments to the hourglass and contact user input parameters to accommodate finer meshes. We introduce in this paper the hourglass energy, which is used as an 'error indicator' for the hourglass control. If the hourglass energy does not tend to zero with mesh refinement, then an hourglass control parameter is changed and the calculation is repeated.

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SIERRA Framework Version 3: Transfer Services Design and Use

Stewart, James R.; Stewart, James R.

This paper presents a description of the SIERRA Framework Version 3 parallel transfer operators. The high-level design including object interrelationships, as well as requirements for their use, is discussed. Transfer operators are used for moving field data from one computational mesh to another. The need for this service spans many different applications. The most common application is to enable loose coupling of multiple physics modules, such as for the coupling of a quasi-statics analysis with a thermal analysis. The SIERRA transfer operators support the transfer of nodal and element fields between meshes of different, arbitrary parallel decompositions. Also supplied are ''copy'' transfer operators for efficient transfer of fields between identical meshes. A ''copy'' transfer operator is also implemented for constraint objects. Each of these transfer operators is described. Also, two different parallel algorithms are presented for handling the geometric misalignment between different parallel-distributed meshes.

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SIERRA Framework Version 3: h-Adaptivity Design and Use

Stewart, James R.; Stewart, James R.; Edwards, Harold C.

This paper presents a high-level overview of the algorithms and supporting functionality provided by SIERRA Framework Version 3 for h-adaptive finite-element mechanics application development. Also presented is a fairly comprehensive description of what is required by the application codes to use the SIERRA h-adaptivity services. In general, the SIERRA framework provides the functionality for hierarchically subdividing elements in a distributed parallel environment, as well as dynamic load balancing. The mechanics application code is required to supply an a posteriori error indicator, prolongation and restriction operators for the field variables, hanging-node constraint handlers, and execution control code. This paper does not describe the Application Programming Interface (API), although references to SIERRA framework classes are given where appropriate.

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Results 26–30 of 30
Results 26–30 of 30