Universal Journal of Mechanical Engineering 2(1): 20-27, 2014 http://www.hrpub.org
DOI: 10.13189/ujme.2014.020103
Benefits of Using Non-consolidated Domain Influence in
Meshless Local Petrov-galerkin (Mlpg) Method for
Solving Lefm Problems
Hashim N. Al-Mahmud, Haider K. Mehbes, Ameen A. Nassar
*
Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Basrah
*Corresponding Author: ameenaledani@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2014 Horizon Research Publishing All rights reserved.
Abstract This paper presents an efficient meshless
method in the formulation of the weak form of local
Petrov-Galerkin method MLPG. The formulation is carried
out by using an elliptic domain rather than conventional
isotropic domain of influence. Therefore, the method
involves an MLPG formulation in conjunction with an
anisotropic weight function. In the elliptic weight function,
each node has three characteristic indicated that were major
radius, inner radius, and the direction of the local domain.
Furthermore, the space that will be covered by the elliptical
domain will be less than the area of the circle (isotropic) at
the same main diameter. This means leaving many points of
integration are not necessary. Therefore, the computational
cost will be decreased. MLPG method with the elliptical
domain is used in solving problems of linear elastic fracture
mechanism LEFM. MATLAB and Fortran codes are used
for obtaining the results of this research .The results were
compared with those presented in the literature which shows
a reduction in the computational cost up to 15%, and an error
criteria enhancement up to 25%.
Keywords Meshless Methods, Local Petrov-Galerkin
Method MLPG, Elliptic Domain
1. Introduction
Meshless (MFree) methods, as alternative numerical
approaches to eliminate the well-known drawbacks in the
finite element and boundary element methods have attracted
much attention in the past decade, due to their flexibility, and
due to their potential in neglecting the need for the
human-labor intensive process of constructing geometric
meshes in a domain. There are a number of MFree methods
has been developed named according to the technique used
in the formulation of the method the major differences in
these meshless methods come from the interpolation
techniques used [1-4].
In recent decades Mfree methods in computational
mechanics have a great attention in solving practical
engineering problems in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and
applied mechanics [5-7],especially those problems with
discontinuities or moving boundaries. The numerical
solution by the traditional finite element method (FEM) of
fracture mechanics problems with arbitrary dynamic cracks
is limited to simple cases. This is because solution of
growing discontinuities requires time consuming remeshing
at every time step. For this reason adaptive FEM has become
essential. However adaptive remeshing and mapping of
variables is a difficult, computationally expensive task and is
a source of cumulative numerical errors. The development of
meshless methods has enabled the solution of growing
cracks without remeshing. Nevertheless, these methods
continue to be computationally expensive because of the
large nodal densities in meshless methods for an accurate
solution. Therefore there is a constant effort to improve the
accuracy without increasing the degrees of freedom The
main objective of MFree methods is to get rid of or at least
alleviate the difficulty of meshing the entire structure ,by
only adding or deleting nodes in the entire structure.
A truly meshless method shadow elements are inevitable
as in Element-Free Galerkin Methods [8-9]called Meshless
Local Petrov-Galerkin Method (MLPG) have been
successfully developed in[10-16]for solving linear and
non-linear boundary problems[17]. The MLPG method uses
local weak forms over a local sub-domain and shape
functions from the moving least-squares (MLS)
approximation[18]. In the MLS approximation, each node in
the global domain Ω has two sub-domains the 1
st
is the
domain of influence Ω
x
, in which a trail function of compact
support is used as a weight function. The weight function
determines the intensity of the effect of a node at various
points in its domain of influence, the 2
nd
is a sub-domain for
the test function Ω
s
(Integral Domain) which often similar in
shape but smaller than the trial function. These nodal trial
and test functions are centered with maximum value at the
nodes (which are the centers of the domains Ω
x
and Ω
s
) ,