Search results

1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 7 August 2009

Karen L. Ricciardi and Stephen H. Brill

The Hermite collocation method of discretization can be used to determine highly accurate solutions to the steady‐state one‐dimensional convection‐diffusion equation (which can be…

Abstract

Purpose

The Hermite collocation method of discretization can be used to determine highly accurate solutions to the steady‐state one‐dimensional convection‐diffusion equation (which can be used to model the transport of contaminants dissolved in groundwater). This accuracy is dependent upon sufficient refinement of the finite‐element mesh as well as applying upstream or downstream weighting to the convective term through the determination of collocation locations which meet specified constraints. Owing to an increase in computational intensity of the application of the method of collocation associated with increases in the mesh refinement, minimal mesh refinement is sought. Very often this optimization problem is the one where the feasible region is not connected and as such requires a specialized optimization search technique. This paper aims to focus on this method.

Design/methodology/approach

An original hybrid method that utilizes a specialized adaptive genetic algorithm followed by a hill‐climbing approach is used to search for the optimal mesh refinement for a number of models differentiated by their velocity fields. The adaptive genetic algorithm is used to determine a mesh refinement that is close to a locally optimal mesh refinement. Following the adaptive genetic algorithm, a hill‐climbing approach is used to determine a local optimal feasible mesh refinement.

Findings

In all cases the optimal mesh refinements determined with this hybrid method are equally optimal to, or a significant improvement over, mesh refinements determined through direct search methods.

Research limitations

Further extensions of this work could include the application of the mesh refinement technique presented in this paper to non‐steady‐state problems with time‐dependent coefficients with multi‐dimensional velocity fields.

Originality/value

The present work applies an original hybrid optimization technique to obtain highly accurate solutions using the method of Hermite collocation with minimal mesh refinement.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 19 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 May 2021

Peng Zeng, Tianbin Li, Rafael Jimenez, Xianda Feng, Yu Chen and Tianlong Zhang

The collocation-based stochastic response surface method (CSRSM) is widely used in geotechnical reliability analyses due to its efficiency and accuracy. Determining the optimal…

Abstract

Purpose

The collocation-based stochastic response surface method (CSRSM) is widely used in geotechnical reliability analyses due to its efficiency and accuracy. Determining the optimal truncated order of the associated polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) is important, as it may strongly affect the practical applicability of CSRSM.

Design/methodology/approach

This study investigates the performance of different optimal order selection strategies used in the CSRSM and proposes a new cross-order validation method. First, several methods commonly used for optimal order selection are briefly reviewed, and their merits and limitations for reliability analyses are discussed. Then, an improved optimal order selection method that achieves a better trade-off between efficiency and accuracy is proposed.

Findings

In total, ten simple mathematical examples from the literature are employed to perform a preliminary test on the proposed method, and a comparative study is conducted to demonstrate its advantages with respect to some other existing methods.

Practical implications

A total of three typical geotechnical problems are employed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method in geotechnical practice.

Originality/value

An improved optimal order selection method that achieves a better trade-off between efficiency and accuracy is proposed. The threshold value of the deterministic coefficient used for the proposed method is discussed.

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2021

Juliana V.C.F. Lima, Fran Sérgio Lobato and Valder Steffen Jr

In this contribution, the solution of Mass-Spring-Damper Systems in the fractional context by using Caputo derivative and Orthogonal Collocation Method is investigated. For this…

Abstract

Purpose

In this contribution, the solution of Mass-Spring-Damper Systems in the fractional context by using Caputo derivative and Orthogonal Collocation Method is investigated. For this purpose, different case studies considering constant and periodic sources are evaluated. The dimensional consistency of the model is guaranteed by introducing an auxiliary parameter. The obtained results are compared with those found by using both the analytical solution and the predictor-corrector method of Adams–Bashforth–Moulton type. The influence of the fractional order on the mechanical system is evaluated.

Design/methodology/approach

In the present contribution, an extension of the Orthogonal Collocation Method to solve fractional differential equations is proposed.

Findings

In general, the proposed methodology was able to solve a classical mechanical engineering problem with different characteristics.

Originality/value

The development of a new numerical method to solve fractional differential equations is the major contribution.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 39 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2015

Boštjan Mavrič and Božidar Šarler

The purpose of this paper is to upgrade our previous developments of Local Radial Basis Function Collocation Method (LRBFCM) for heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetic…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to upgrade our previous developments of Local Radial Basis Function Collocation Method (LRBFCM) for heat transfer, fluid flow and electromagnetic problems to thermoelastic problems and to study its numerical performance with the aim to build a multiphysics meshless computing environment based on LRBFCM.

Design/methodology/approach

Linear thermoelastic problems for homogenous isotropic body in two dimensions are considered. The stationary stress equilibrium equation is written in terms of deformation field. The domain and boundary can be discretized with arbitrary positioned nodes where the solution is sought. Each of the nodes has its influence domain, encompassing at least six neighboring nodes. The unknown displacement field is collocated on local influence domain nodes with shape functions that consist of a linear combination of multiquadric radial basis functions and monomials. The boundary conditions are analytically satisfied on the influence domains which contain boundary points. The action of the stationary stress equilibrium equation on the constructed interpolation results in a sparse system of linear equations for solution of the displacement field.

Findings

The performance of the method is demonstrated on three numerical examples: bending of a square, thermal expansion of a square and thermal expansion of a thick cylinder. Error is observed to be composed of two contributions, one proportional to a power of internodal spacing and the other to a power of the shape parameter. The latter term is the reason for the observed accuracy saturation, while the former term describes the order of convergence. The explanation of the observed error is given for the smallest number of collocation points (six) used in local domain of influence. The observed error behavior is explained by considering the Taylor series expansion of the interpolant. The method can achieve high accuracy and performs well for the examples considered.

Research limitations/implications

The method can at the present cope with linear thermoelasticity. Other, more complicated material behavior (visco-plasticity for example), will be tackled in one of our future publications.

Originality/value

LRBFCM has been developed for thermoelasticity and its error behavior studied. A robust way of controlling the error was devised from consideration of the condition number. The performance of the method has been demonstrated for a large number of the nodes and on uniform and non-uniform node arrangements.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 25 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1995

T. Laclair and J.I. Frankel

One‐dimensional radiative heat transfer is considered in aplane‐parallel geometry for an absorbing, emitting, and linearly anisotropicscattering medium subjected to azimuthally…

Abstract

One‐dimensional radiative heat transfer is considered in a plane‐parallel geometry for an absorbing, emitting, and linearly anisotropic scattering medium subjected to azimuthally symmetric incident radiation at the boundaries. The integral form of the transport equation is used throughout the analysis. This formulation leads to a system of weakly‐singular Fredholm integral equations of the second kind. The resulting unknown functions are then formally expanded in Chebyshev series. These series representations are truncated at a specified number of terms, leaving residual functions as a result of the approximation. The collocation and the Ritz‐Galerkin methods are formulated, and are expressed in terms of general orthogonality conditions applied to the residual functions. The major contribution of the present work lies in developing quantitative error estimates. Error bounds are obtained for the approximating functions by developing equations relating the residuals to the errors and applying functional norms to the resulting set of equations. The collocation and Ritz‐Galerkin methods are each applied in turn to determine the expansion coefficients of the approximating functions. The effectiveness of each method is interpreted by analyzing the errors which result from the approximations.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 5 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 May 2019

X.W. Gao, Huayu Liu, Miao Cui, Kai Yang and Haifeng Peng

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new strong-form numerical method, called the free element method, for solving general boundary value problems governed by partial…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new strong-form numerical method, called the free element method, for solving general boundary value problems governed by partial differential equations. The main idea of the method is to use a locally formed element for each point to set up the system of equations. The proposed method is used to solve the fluid mechanics problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed free element method adopts the isoparametric elements as used in the finite element method (FEM) to represent the variation of coordinates and physical variables and collocates equations node-by-node based on the newly derived element differential formulations by the authors. The distinct feature of the method is that only one independently formed individual element is used at each point. The final system of equations is directly formed by collocating the governing equations at internal points and the boundary conditions at boundary points. The method can effectively capture phenomena of sharply jumped variables and discontinuities (e.g. the shock waves).

Findings

a) A new numerical method called the FEM is proposed; b) the proposed method is used to solve the compressible fluid mechanics problems for the first time, in which the shock wave can be naturally captured; and c) the method can directly set up the system of equations from the governing equations.

Originality/value

This paper presents a completely new numerical method for solving compressible fluid mechanics problems, which has not been submitted anywhere else for publication.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 36 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 June 2020

Adam Basílio, Fran Sérgio Lobato and Fábio de Oliveira Arouca

The study of heat transfer mechanisms is an area of great interest because of various applications that can be developed. Mathematically, these phenomena are usually represented…

Abstract

Purpose

The study of heat transfer mechanisms is an area of great interest because of various applications that can be developed. Mathematically, these phenomena are usually represented by partial differential equations associated with initial and boundary conditions. In general, the resolution of these problems requires using numerical techniques through discretization of boundary and internal points of the domain considered, implying a high computational cost. As an alternative to reducing computational costs, various approaches based on meshless (or meshfree) methods have been evaluated in the literature. In this contribution, the purpose of this paper is to formulate and solve direct and inverse problems applied to Laplace’s equation (steady state and bi-dimensional) considering different geometries and regularization techniques. For this purpose, the method of fundamental solutions is associated to Tikhonov regularization or the singular value decomposition method for solving the direct problem and the differential Evolution algorithm is considered as an optimization tool for solving the inverse problem. From the obtained results, it was observed that using a regularization technique is very important for obtaining a reliable solution. Concerning the inverse problem, it was concluded that the results obtained by the proposed methodology were considered satisfactory, as even with different levels of noise, good estimates for design variables in proposed inverse problems were obtained.

Design/methodology/approach

In this contribution, the method of fundamental solution is used to solve inverse problems considering the Laplace equation.

Findings

In general, the proposed methodology was able to solve inverse problems considering different geometries.

Originality/value

The association between the differential evolution algorithm and the method of fundamental solutions is the major contribution.

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2019

Huan Zhao and Zhenghong Gao

The high probability of the occurrence of separation bubbles or shocks and early transition to turbulence on surfaces of airfoil makes it very difficult to design high-lift and…

Abstract

Purpose

The high probability of the occurrence of separation bubbles or shocks and early transition to turbulence on surfaces of airfoil makes it very difficult to design high-lift and high-speed Natural-Laminar-Flow (NLF) airfoil for high-altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicles. To resolve this issue, a framework of uncertainty-based design optimization (UBDO) is developed based on an adjusted polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) method.

Design/methodology/approach

The γ ̄Re-θt transition model combined with the shear stress transport k-ω turbulence model is used to predict the laminar-turbulent transition. The particle swarm optimization algorithm and PCE are integrated to search for the optimal NLF airfoil. Using proposed UBDO framework, the aforementioned problem has been regularized to achieve the optimal airfoil with a tradeoff of aerodynamic performances under fully turbulent and free transition conditions. The tradeoff is to make sure its good performance when early transition to turbulence on surfaces of NLF airfoil happens.

Findings

The results indicate that UBDO of NLF airfoil considering Mach number and lift coefficient uncertainty under free transition condition shows a significant deterioration when complicated flight conditions lead to early transition to turbulence. Meanwhile, UBDO of NLF airfoil with a tradeoff of performances under both fully turbulent and free transition conditions holds robust and reliable aerodynamic performance under complicated flight conditions.

Originality/value

In this work, the authors build an effective uncertainty-based design framework based on an adjusted PCE method and apply the framework to design two high-performance NLF airfoils. One of the two NLF airfoils considers Mach number and lift coefficient uncertainty under free transition condition, and the other considers uncertainties both under fully turbulent and free transition conditions. The results show that robust design of NLF airfoil should simultaneously consider Mach number, lift coefficient (angle of attack) and transition location uncertainty.

Article
Publication date: 2 December 2020

Ömer Oruç

The purpose of this paper is to obtain accurate numerical solutions of two-dimensional (2-D) and 3-dimensional (3-D) Klein–Gordon–Schrödinger (KGS) equations.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to obtain accurate numerical solutions of two-dimensional (2-D) and 3-dimensional (3-D) Klein–Gordon–Schrödinger (KGS) equations.

Design/methodology/approach

The use of linear barycentric interpolation differentiation matrices facilitates the computation of numerical solutions both in 2-D and 3-D space within reasonable central processing unit times.

Findings

Numerical simulations corroborate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.

Originality/value

Linear barycentric interpolation method is applied to 2-D and 3-D KGS equations for the first time, and good results are obtained.

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2006

K. Maleknejad and H. Mesgarani

Aims to present a boundary integral equation method for solving Laplace's equation Δu=0 with nonlinear boundary conditions.

242

Abstract

Purpose

Aims to present a boundary integral equation method for solving Laplace's equation Δu=0 with nonlinear boundary conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

The nonlinear boundary value problem is reformulated as a nonlinear boundary integral equation, with u on the boundary as the solution being sought. The integral equation is solved numerically by using the collocation method on smooth or nonsmooth boundary; the singularities of solution degrade the rates of convergence.

Findings

Variants of the methods for finding numerical solutions are suggested. So these methods have been compared with respect to number of iterations.

Practical implications

Numerical experiments show the efficiency of the proposed methods.

Originality/value

Provides new methods to solve nonlinear weakly singular integral equations and discusses difficulties that arise in particular cases.

Details

Kybernetes, vol. 35 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0368-492X

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 1000