1 VARIOUS MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS APPEARS IN SCIENCE AND

ENGINEERING:

Finite Element Methods

Module 2

Part 1:

In the last class we discussed the preliminaries of finite element methods. We have
discussed about mesh and structures and how a finite element discretizations forms for
a model structure. Also we have discussed some physical problems for which the Finite
element model can be formulated.

1 Various mathematical equations appears in science and

engineering:

Electricity: The equations governing electrostatics are similar to those for heat conduction.
The relationship between the electric displacement D(x) and the charge density ρ(x)
written as:

d
[ A(x)D(x) ] = ρ(x) A(x), (1.1)
dx

where A(x) is the cross-sectional area perpendicular to the x axis.

The relation between electric potential φ(x) and electric field E(x) is given by:

dφ(x)
E(x) = − (1.2)
dx

Let  (x) be the permittivity of the material, here permittivity means the ability of a
substance to store electrical energy in an electric field. The constitutive equation is written
as:

dφ(x)
D(x) =  (x)E(x) = − (x) (1.3)
dx

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 1 VARIOUS MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS APPEARS IN SCIENCE AND
ENGINEERING:

Combining equations (1.1) and (1.3) gives the governing equation:

d  dφ(x) 
 (x) A(x) + ρ(x) A(x) = 0.
dx dx

We specify the natural boundary condition on D and the essential boundary condition on
φ.

Mass transport: In particular, when groundwater flow can be assumed to be defined

as potential flow, a species within the mixture can be assumed to flow with the groundwater
and diffuse into its host medium at the same time. Therefore the theory of potential flow
can be combined with the theory of mass diffusion. Assuming a constant area, the balance
of mass for a dilute mixture can be written as

dC(x) dj (x)
u(x) + + Kr C(x) = m (1.4)
dx dx

where u(x) is the velocity of the mixture, C(x) is the concentration of dilute species, j (x)
is the flux of the species, m is an external source of mass and Kr is a reaction rate that
accounts for a reaction between the dilute species and its surroundings, such as a chemical
reaction.

The constitutive equation is known as Fick’s law and is written as

dC(x)
j (x) = −D(x) , (1.5)
dx

where D(x) is the diffusivity. Combining equations (1.4) and (1.5), we write the governing
equation

dC(x) d  dC(x) 
u(x) − D(x) + Kr C(x) = m. (1.6)
dx dx dx

The velocity u(x) is assumed to be known. Essential boundary conditions are on C(x)
and natural boundary conditions are imposed on the flux j (x).

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 2 FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD AND FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Part 2:

2 Finite Difference Method and Finite Element Method

How do we define FEM

The FEM is a computational method that subdivides a domain model into very small but
finite-sized elements of geometrically simple shapes. The collection of all these simple
shapes constitutes the so-called finite-element mesh.

The next step is to take a system of field equations, mathematically represented by

partial differential equations (PDEs) that describe the physics we are interested in, and
formulate these equations for each element. This is handled by approximating the fields
within each element as a simple function, such as a linear or quadratic polynomial, with a
finite number of degrees of freedom (DOFs). This gives an approximate local description
of the physics by a set of simple linear (but sometimes nonlinear) equations. When
the contributions from all elements are assembled we end up with a large sparse matrix
equation system that can be solved by any of several well-known sparse matrix solvers.

How would we define the finite-difference method (FDM)

The FDM is the most direct approach to discretizing PDEs. We consider a point in
space where we take the discrete representation of the equations, called finite-difference
equations. The finite-difference method is typically defined on a regular grid and this fact
can be used for very efficient solution methods.

Major difference: Each method is quite similar in that it represents a systematic

numerical method for solving PDEs. One important difference is the ease of implemen-
tation. A common opinion is that the FDM is the easiest to implement and the FEM
the most difficult. One reason for this may be that the FEM requires quite sophisticated
mathematics for its formulation.

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 2 FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD AND FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Finite-Element Method Advantages and Disadvantages

One reason for the finite element method’s success in the multi-physics analysis is that it is
a very general method. Solving the resulting equation systems is the same or very similar
to well-known and efficient methods used for structural and electromagnetics analysis.
Another reason for the method’s success is that it makes it easy to “increase the order of
the elements” so that the physics fields can be approximated very accurately. This typically
corresponds to locally approximating the physics fields of polynomials of “higher order”,
such as second- and third-degree polynomials, or higher.

Another advantage with the FEM, which is particularly important for multi-physics
analysis, is that we can combine different kinds of functions that approximate the solution
within each element. This is called mixed formulations. This is important, for example, in
the case of electromagnetic heating. Physics and mathematics require one type of function
for the electromagnetic field and another type of function for heat transfer; they both need
to be tightly coupled to get an accurate solution and for the solution to converge. Mixed
formulations are straightforward to handle the FEM. But it is difficult or impossible with
other methods.

If we consider the domains with complicated shapes, then it is an important part that
the corner of the domain boundary needs to handle to obtain the solution. For example,
if we consider the example of stress analysis, it is quite common that there are important
stress concentrations close to some of the corners of a mechanical part. In this case, the
FEM allows for two different ways of increasing the accuracy of the solution around this
corner. One way is to increase the order of the elements, as described earlier. Another
method is to locally refine the mesh close to that corner; the element density increases
locally. The finer the mesh (i.e., more elements), the more accurate approximation one gets
for the stress field around the corner of interest. Both techniques are used in finite-element
software and are frequently made automatic from the user’s perspective. This is known as
“adaptive mesh refinement”.

However, the mathematics behind the FEM is quite advanced and thus the method

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 2 FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD AND FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

requires mathematical expertise for its implementation. Implementations of FDMs are

comparatively straightforward.

For certain time-dependent simulations, one needs to use so-called explicit solvers for
reasons of efficiency. Implementing such solver techniques is more difficult for the FEM
than for the FDMs.

Part 3:

Finite-Difference Method Advantages and Disadvantages

The FDM gives an efficient implementation which is much easier than for FEMs. Regular
grids for FDM are useful for very-large-scale simulations on supercomputers often used
in, as mentioned before, meteorological, seismological, and astrophysical simulations.

With the FDM, we may easily run into problems handling curved boundaries for the
purpose of defining the boundary conditions. Boundary conditions are needed to truncate
the computational domain. They represent communication with the surrounding world,
which is the part that we want to include in our simulation. If one can overcome the
boundary-condition problem on curved boundaries, the method gives very efficient and
high quality results.

The FDM is more difficult to use for handling material discontinuities. In addition,
it does not lend itself for local grid refinement or anything similar to “adaptive mesh
refinement”. This may be needed to resolve rapid local variations in solutions such as
around a corner of a complex shape, as described earlier.

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 2 FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD AND FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Figure 1: (a) The discretization of a rectangular plate.

• Discretization of rectangular plate into elements using horizontal and vertical lines
(cf. Figure 1).

• The junctions are known as nodes, which are denoted by circles.

• FDM basically calculate the unknowns from one node to another node.

• FEM calculate the intermediate values of the node also.