The Virtual Element Method And Its Applications

The purpose of this book is to present the current state of the art of the Virtual Element Method (VEM) by collecting contributions from many of the most active researchers in this field and covering a broad range of topics: from the mathematical foundation to real life computational applications. The book is naturally divided into three parts. The first part of the book presents recent advances in theoretical and computational aspects of VEMs, discussing the generality of the meshes suitable to the VEM, the implementation of the VEM for linear and nonlinear PDEs, and the construction of discrete hessian complexes. The second part of the volume discusses Virtual Element discretization of paradigmatic linear and non-linear partial differential problems from computational mechanics, fluid dynamics, and wave propagation phenomena. Finally, the third part contains challenging applications such as the modeling of materials with fractures, magneto-hydrodynamics phenomena and contact solid mechanics. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in mathematics and engineering fields, interested in learning novel numerical techniques for the solution of partial differential equations. It may as well serve as useful reference material for numerical analysts practitioners of the field.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the virtual element method (VEM) for engineering applications, focusing on its application in solid mechanics. Starting with a continuum mechanics background, the book establishes the necessary foundation for understanding the subsequent chapters. It then delves into the VEM's Ansatz functions and projection techniques, both for solids and the Poisson equation, which are fundamental to the method. The book explores the virtual element formulation for elasticity problems, offering insights into its advantages and capabilities. Moving beyond elasticity, the VEM is extended to problems in dynamics, enabling the analysis of dynamic systems with accuracy and efficiency. The book also covers the virtual element formulation for finite plasticity, providing a framework for simulating the behavior of materials undergoing plastic deformation. Furthermore, the VEM is applied to thermo-mechanical problems, where it allows for the investigation of coupled thermal and mechanical effects. The book dedicates a significant portion to the virtual elements for fracture processes, presenting techniques to model and analyze fractures in engineering structures. It also addresses contact problems, showcasing the VEM's effectiveness in dealing with contact phenomena. The virtual element method's versatility is further demonstrated through its application in homogenization, offering a means to understand the effective behavior of composite materials and heterogeneous structures. Finally, the book concludes with the virtual elements for beams and plates, exploring their application in these specific structural elements. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the advantages of the virtual element method over traditional finite element discretization schemes, highlighting its accuracy, flexibility, and computational efficiency in various engineering contexts.

This book explores several important aspects of recent developments in the interdisciplinary applications of mathematical analysis (MA), and highlights how MA is now being employed in many areas of scientific research. Each of the 23 carefully reviewed chapters was written by experienced expert(s) in respective field, and will enrich readers’ understanding of the respective research problems, providing them with sufficient background to understand the theories, methods and applications discussed. The book’s main goal is to highlight the latest trends and advances, equipping interested readers to pursue further research of their own. Given its scope, the book will especially benefit graduate and PhD students, researchers in the applied sciences, educators, and engineers with an interest in recent developments in the interdisciplinary applications of mathematical analysis.

The International Conference Zaragoza-Pau on Mathematics and its Applications was organized by the Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, the Departamento de Métodos Estadísticos and the Departamento de Matemáticas, all of them from the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), and the Laboratoire de Mathématiques et de leurs Applications, from the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (France). This conference has been held every two years since 1989. The aim of this conference is to present recent advances in Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Pure Mathematics, putting special emphasis on subjects linked to petroleum engineering and environmental problems. The Fourteenth Conference took place in Jaca (Spain) from 12nd to 15th September 2016. During those four days, 99 mathematicians, coming from di erent universities, research institutes or the industrial sector, attended 14 plenary lectures, 62 contributed talks and a poster session with 4 posters. We note that in this edition there were 11 mini-symposia, two of them co-organized by colleagues from the Universidad de Zaragoza and the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour.

This volume contains contributed survey papers from the main speakers at the LMS/EPSRC Symposium “Building bridges: connections and challenges in modern approaches to numerical partial differential equations”. This meeting took place in July 8-16, 2014, and its main purpose was to gather specialists in emerging areas of numerical PDEs, and explore the connections between the different approaches. The type of contributions ranges from the theoretical foundations of these new techniques, to the applications of them, to new general frameworks and unified approaches that can cover one, or more than one, of these emerging techniques.

The last few years have witnessed a surge in the development and usage of discretization methods supporting general meshes in geoscience applications. The need for general polyhedral meshes in this context can arise in several situations, including the modelling of petroleum reservoirs and basins, CO2 and nuclear storage sites, etc. In the above and other situations, classical discretization methods are either not viable or require ad hoc modifications that add to the implementation complexity. Discretization methods able to operate on polyhedral meshes and possibly delivering arbitrary-order approximations constitute in this context a veritable technological jump. The goal of this monograph is to establish a state-of-the-art reference on polyhedral methods for geoscience applications by gathering contributions from top-level research groups working on this topic. This book is addressed to graduate students and researchers wishing to deepen their knowledge of advanced numerical methods with a focus on geoscience applications, as well as practitioners of the field.

This book gathers selected contributions on emerging research work presented at the International Conference eXtended Discretization MethodS (X-DMS), held in Ferrara in September 2015. It highlights the most relevant advances made at the international level in the context of expanding classical discretization methods, like finite elements, to the numerical analysis of a variety of physical problems. The improvements are intended to achieve higher computational efficiency and to account for special features of the solution directly in the approximation space and/or in the discretization procedure. The methods described include, among others, partition of unity methods (meshfree, XFEM, GFEM), virtual element methods, fictitious domain methods, and special techniques for static and evolving interfaces. The uniting feature of all contributions is the direct link between computational methodologies and their application to different engineering areas.

A comprehensive review of the Finite Element Method (FEM), this book provides the fundamentals together with a wide range of applications in civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineering. It addresses both the theoretical and numerical implementation aspects of the FEM, providing examples in several important topics such as solid mechanics, fluid mechanics and heat transfer, appealing to a wide range of engineering disciplines. Written by a renowned author and academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, The Finite Element Method would appeal to researchers looking to understand how the fundamentals of the FEM can be applied in other disciplines. Researchers and graduate students studying hydraulic, mechanical and civil engineering will find it a practical reference text.