Natural Element Method

in Solid Mechanics
T. Rajagopalachary and
V.V. Kutumbarao
Metallo 2007
(Commemorative Conference on 80th
Birthday of Professor T. R. Anantharaman)

IIT, Kanpur
December 9, 2007

Natural Element Method in Solid Mechanics

Finite element Method

Mesh-free methods

1. Direct solution of a set of Pde and

associate boundary/initial conditions or
from its variational or weak form is
attempted

Galerkin formulations are quite popular.

Several variants from fully point
collocation methods to very similar to
FEM or FDM

2. Discretize domain into elements and

nodes. Prescribed connectivity between an
element and its associated nodes.

2. The continuum is discretized to have

internal and boundary nodes. The solution
at nodal points is approximated

3. Lagrangian or Labatto polynomials, etc)

provide element wise local approximation
of solution

3. Approximants ( not necessarily

interpolants ) are used e.g. Radial basis
functions, multiquadrics, from MLS
approximation

4. Interpolation and test functions used

have properties of Partition of Unity and
Kronecker delta, are often consistent

They may lack the properties of Partition of

unity and /or Kronecker delta

5. Element equations are assembled using

nodal connectivity. Enforcing boundary
condition is easy

6. Assembly is node-wise. Imposition of

essential boundary conditions is not trivial.
Several procedures are suggested

6. Solution of algebraic equations give the

filed variables of the problem at nodes

6. Solution of algebraic equations give the

filed variables of the problem at nodes.

Meshfree methods differ from FEM in

Construction of interpolants or approximants
Numerical quadrature and matrix assembly
Imposition of boundary conditions
Post-processing

NEM uses natural neighbour coordinates or natural neighbour interpolants

Sibson
non-Sibson
Characteristics of NEM

NEM shape functions are interpolants and are positive definite

NEM interpolants obey partition of unity and reproduce linear

variations (A requirement for convergence)

NEM shape functions are infinitely smooth except at the point of

definition Can be used in solving higher order pde than quadratic.

Where C1 Continuity is a must natural neighbor coordinates are

incorporated into Bezier splines.

Basic steps in NEM

Discretize the domain for nodes

Construct the weak form of PDE

Assume NEM interpolants and Formulate

NEM discrete matrix equations

Construct a background cellular network.

Loop over a cell

Determine the gauss point coordinates

To impose Dirichlet conditions for nonconvex domains with Sibson interpolation

use any of
Lagrange multipliers method
Penalty function method.
Transform method

Solve algebraic equations. Coefficient

matrices of NEM are sparse and symmetric
though not banded.

Post processing in NEM is simple.

Theoretical formulation of typical problem in solid mechanics

Constrained Principle of virtual work (weak form)

BIT DBJ d
where

bd
I I

BIT D *d

C(u)d

is the strain displacement tensor,

D is the elastic stiffness tensor,

b is the body force vector,
C (u )
displacement constraint is

Lagrange multipliers vector is T , * is initial strain tensor

C(u)d

)
Theoretical formulation (continued)

NEM trial functions are defined by

u h ( x)

I 1 I I

Test and trial functions are the same.

Key ingredients of all meshfree methods, which differ from finite
element based procedure in detail, are
( i ) Calculation of nodal shape functions,

(ii) Evaluation of matrices formulations by a Galerkin procedure,

(iii) Imposition of boundary conditions.

(iv) Post processing of results

Construction of NEM shape functions is based on Voronoi diagrams

The Voronoi construction is formed by
drawing perpendicular bisectors
between an arbitrary given node n and
I
other nodes n . When we consider all
J
the other nodes (n I n J ), the
perpendicular bisectors of lines n I n J
constitute a closed polygon around
node n I. This closed convex polygon is
called as Voronoi cell.

nI

Delaunay triangle is the line dual of Voronoi diagram

The triangulation becomes Delaunay if for any arbitrary triangle,

the circumcircle of the triangle contains no other vertex than its
three vertices. Delaunay triangulation is also called as Delaunay
tessellation or Delaunay graph.

Line dual to the Delaunay triangulation is the Voronoi diagrams .

Natural neighbors of a node are those

whose Voronoi cell shares a common edge.
Node A has as natural neighbours in B,C
and D but not the nodes E or F. Euclidean
distances of nodes A and E or A and F are
smaller than the those between nodes A and
D or A and C

Construction of First and second order Voronoi diagrams of point

(a) Original Voronoi diagram and x

(b) First and second order Voronoi cells about x

Natural Neighbor based Interpolants

Sibson Interpolant

Laplace or Non-Sibsonian
Interpolant

NEM Shape functions on a regular domain of support

(a) Domain of support,

(b) Sibson Interpolant,

(c) Laplace interpolant

Issues connected with NEM applications in Solid Mechanics

Numerical quadrature of integrals

Imposition of boundary conditions

Different nodal discretizations for a unit square for Patch test

L
H21

Patch of elements with regular

spacing containing 25 nodes

Patch test with 8 nodes

per unit square

A patch of elements on unit square containing 70 nodes

Error norm calculations for Patch test

H1

L2 Error Norm
Number of nodes in
unit square plate

NEM

Error norm

FEM

NEM

FEM

7.6125e-03

3.72e-17

6.8265e-02

2.98e-16

25

6.1010e-04

8.76e-17

6.4932e-03

5.68e-16

70

3.6413e-03

1.87e-16

1.55e-01

2.04e-15

NEM Compared

Finite element
method

Natural element
method

Element free Galerkin

Interpolants are used

Interpolants are used

Approximants are used. It is

constructed solely from a set
of notes and weight
functions

Interpolants have
compact support of
shape functions

Interpolants have
compact support of
shape functions

Approximants have compact

support of shape functions

Integrals in weak form

are estimated to very
good precision

Shape functions are not The precision of Numerical

polynomials; Numerical integration is a much greater
integration is an issue issue.

Coefficient matrix is
banded

Not banded

Not banded

Computational costs are costs are higher

low

Costs are higher

Mesh distortion and

Not an issue.
entanglement is an issue

Not an issue.

Thank You