Meshfree methods

About: Meshfree methods is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2216 publications have been published within this topic receiving 69596 citations.

A meshless method based on RBFs method for nonhomogeneous backward heat conduction problem

Abstract: Based on the idea of radial basis functions approximation and the method of particular solutions, we develop in this paper a new meshless computational method to solve nonhomogeneous backward heat conduction problem. To illustrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method, we solve several benchmark problems in both two- and three-dimensions. Numerical results indicate that this novel approach can achieve an efficient and accurate solution even when the final temperature data is almost undetectable or disturbed with large noises. It has also been shown that the proposed method is stable to recover the unknown initial temperature from scattered final temperature data.

Strain Smoothing for Stabilization and Regularization of Galerkin Meshfree Methods

Abstract: In this paper we introduce various forms of strain smoothing for stabilization and regularization of two types of instability: (1) numerical instability resulting from nodal domain integration of weak form, and (2) material instability due to material strain softening and localization behavior. For numerical spatial instability, we show that the conforming strain smoothing in stabilized conforming nodal integration only suppresses zero energy modes resulting from nodal domain integration. When the spurious nonzero energy modes are excited, additional stabilization is proposed. For problems involving strain softening and localization, regularization of the ill-posed problem is needed. We show that the gradient type regularization method for strain softening and localization can be formulated implicitly by introducing a gradient reproducing kernel strain smoothing. It is also demonstrated that the gradient reproducing kernel strain smoothing also provides a stabilization to the nodally integrated stiffness matrix. For application to modeling of fragment penetration processes, a nonconforming strain smoothing as a simplification of conforming strain smoothing is also introduced.

Updated Lagrangian free surface flow simulations with natural neighbour Galerkin methods

Abstract: In this paper, a new method to simulate free surface fluid flows within an updated Lagrangian framework is described. It is based on the use of a meshless technique coined as natural element method (NEM) or, more recently, as natural neighbour Galerkin method. The position of the flow front or the geometry of the fluid domain is handled by invoking the geometrical concept of α-shape of the cloud of points, thus avoiding the explicit definition of the boundary of the domain as it evolves. This method also avoids the traditional need of remeshing typical in finite element simulations of this kind of processes. Three types of fluid behaviour have been considered, namely a purely Newtonian fluid, a non-Newtonian short fibre-reinforced thermoplastic, and finally a Norton–Hoff viscoplastic behaviour. Benchmark examples showing the performance of the technique are included in the paper. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Review on Recent Contribution of Meshfree Methods to Structure and Fracture Mechanics Applications

Abstract: Meshfree methods are viewed as next generation computational techniques. With evident limitations of conventional grid based methods, like FEM, in dealing with problems of fracture mechanics, large deformation, and simulation of manufacturing processes, meshfree methods have gained much attention by researchers. A number of meshfree methods have been proposed till now for analyzing complex problems in various fields of engineering. Present work attempts to review recent developments and some earlier applications of well-known meshfree methods like EFG and MLPG to various types of structure mechanics and fracture mechanics applications like bending, buckling, free vibration analysis, sensitivity analysis and topology optimization, single and mixed mode crack problems, fatigue crack growth, and dynamic crack analysis and some typical applications like vibration of cracked structures, thermoelastic crack problems, and failure transition in impact problems. Due to complex nature of meshfree shape functions and evaluation of integrals in domain, meshless methods are computationally expensive as compared to conventional mesh based methods. Some improved versions of original meshfree methods and other techniques suggested by researchers to improve computational efficiency of meshfree methods are also reviewed here.