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1. Fast Barycentric-Based Evaluation Over Spectral/hp Elements

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10915-021-01750-2  

   Laughton, Edward ; Zala, Vidhi ; Narayan, Akil ; Kirby, Robert M. ; Moxey, David ( January 2022 , Journal of Scientific Computing)

   As the use of spectral/hpelement methods, and high-order finite element methods in general, continues to spread, community efforts to create efficient, optimized algorithms associated with fundamental high-order operations have grown. Core tasks such as solution expansion evaluation at quadrature points, stiffness and mass matrix generation, and matrix assembly have received tremendous attention. With the expansion of the types of problems to which high-order methods are applied, and correspondingly the growth in types of numerical tasks accomplished through high-order methods, the number and types of these core operations broaden. This work focuses on solution expansion evaluation at arbitrary points within an element. This operation is core to many postprocessing applications such as evaluation of streamlines and pathlines, as well as to field projection techniques such as mortaring. We expand barycentric interpolation techniques developed on an interval to 2D (triangles and quadrilaterals) and 3D (tetrahedra, prisms, pyramids, and hexahedra) spectral/hpelement methods. We provide efficient algorithms for their implementations, and demonstrate their effectiveness using the spectral/hpelement libraryNektar++by running a series of baseline evaluations against the ‘standard’ Lagrangian method, where an interpolation matrix is generated and matrix-multiplication applied to evaluate a point at a given location. We present results from a rigorous seriesmore »of benchmarking tests for a variety of element shapes, polynomial orders and dimensions. We show that when the point of interest is to be repeatedly evaluated, the barycentric method performs at worst$$50\%$$$50\%$slower, when compared to a cached matrix evaluation. However, when the point of interest changes repeatedly so that the interpolation matrix must be regenerated in the ‘standard’ approach, the barycentric method yields far greater performance, with a minimum speedup factor of$$7\times $$$7\times$. Furthermore, when derivatives of the solution evaluation are also required, the barycentric method in general slightly outperforms the cached interpolation matrix method across all elements and orders, with an up to$$30\%$$$30\%$speedup. Finally we investigate a real-world example of scalar transport using a non-conformal discontinuous Galerkin simulation, in which we observe around$$6\times $$$6\times$speedup in computational time for the barycentric method compared to the matrix-based approach. We also explore the complexity of both interpolation methods and show that the barycentric interpolation method requires$${\mathcal {O}}(k)$$$O\left(k\right)$storage compared to a best case space complexity of$${\mathcal {O}}(k^2)$$$O\left(k^2\right)$for the Lagrangian interpolation matrix method.

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2. A fully-coupled framework for solving Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes equations: Second-order, energy-stable numerical methods on adaptive octree based meshes

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2022.108501  

   Makrand A. Khanwale ; Kumar Saurabh ; Milinda Fernando ; Victor M.Calo ; Hari Sundar ; James A.Rossmanith ; Baskar Ganapathysubramanian ( November 2022 , Computer physics communications)

   We present a fully-coupled, implicit-in-time framework for solving a thermodynamically-consistent Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes system that models two-phase flows. In this work, we extend the block iterative method presented in Khanwale et al. [Simulating two-phase flows with thermodynamically consistent energy stable Cahn-Hilliard Navier-Stokes equations on parallel adaptive octree based meshes, J. Comput. Phys. (2020)], to a fully-coupled, provably second-order accurate scheme in time, while maintaining energy-stability. The new method requires fewer matrix assemblies in each Newton iteration resulting in faster solution time. The method is based on a fully-implicit Crank-Nicolson scheme in time and a pressure stabilization for an equal order Galerkin formulation. That is, we use a conforming continuous Galerkin (cG) finite element method in space equipped with a residual-based variational multiscale (RBVMS) procedure to stabilize the pressure. We deploy this approach on a massively parallel numerical implementation using parallel octree-based adaptive meshes. We present comprehensive numerical experiments showing detailed comparisons with results from the literature for canonical cases, including the single bubble rise, Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and lid-driven cavity flow problems. We analyze in detail the scaling of our numerical implementation.
3. Solving three-dimensional interface problems with immersed finite elements: A-priori error analysis

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2021.110445  

   Guo, R. ; Zhang, X ( September 2021 , Journal of computational physics)

   Immersed finite element methods are designed to solve interface problems on interface- unfitted meshes. However, most of the study, especially analysis, is mainly limited to the two-dimension case. In this paper, we provide an a priori analysis for the trilinear immersed finite element method to solve three-dimensional elliptic interface problems on Cartesian grids consisting of cuboids. We establish the trace and inverse inequalities for trilinear IFE functions for interface elements with arbitrary interface-cutting configuration. Optimal a priori error estimates are rigorously proved in both energy and L2 norms, with the constant in the error bound independent of the interface location and its dependence on coefficient contrast explicitly specified. Numerical examples are provided not only to verify our theoretical results but also to demonstrate the applicability of this IFE method in tackling some real-world 3D interface models.
4. Towards an open-source landscape for 3-D CSEM modelling

   https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggab238  

   Werthmüller, Dieter ; Rochlitz, Raphael ; Castillo-Reyes, Octavio ; Heagy, Lindsey ( July 2021 , Geophysical Journal International)

   SUMMARY Large-scale modelling of 3-D controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) surveys used to be feasible only for large companies and research consortia. This has changed over the last few years, and today there exists a selection of different open-source codes available to everyone. Using four different codes in the Python ecosystem, we perform simulations for increasingly complex models in a shallow marine setting. We first verify the computed fields with semi-analytical solutions for a simple layered model. Then we validate the responses of a more complex block model by comparing results obtained from each code. Finally, we compare the responses of a real-world model with results from the industry. On the one hand, these validations show that the open-source codes are able to compute comparable CSEM responses for challenging, large-scale models. On the other hand, they show many general and method-dependent problems that need to be faced for obtaining accurate results. Our comparison includes finite-element and finite-volume codes using structured rectilinear and octree meshes as well as unstructured tetrahedral meshes. Accurate responses can be obtained independently of the chosen method and the chosen mesh type. The runtime and memory requirements vary greatly based on the choice of iterative or direct solvers. However,more »we have found that much more time was spent on designing the mesh and setting up the simulations than running the actual computation. The challenging task is, irrespective of the chosen code, to appropriately discretize the model. We provide three models, each with their corresponding discretization and responses of four codes, which can be used for validation of new and existing codes. The collaboration of four code maintainers trying to achieve the same task brought in the end all four codes a significant step further. This includes improved meshing and interpolation capabilities, resulting in shorter runtimes for the same accuracy. We hope that these results may be useful for the CSEM community at large and that we can build over time a suite of benchmarks that will help to increase the confidence in existing and new 3-D CSEM codes.« less
5. An energy-based study of the embedded element method for explicit dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40323-022-00223-x  

   Martin, Valerie A. ; Kraft, Reuben H. ; Hannah, Thomas H. ; Ellis, Stephen ( December 2022 , Advanced Modeling and Simulation in Engineering Sciences)

   Abstract The embedded finite element technique provides a unique approach for modeling of fiber-reinforced composites. Meshing fibers as distinct bundles represented by truss elements embedded in a matrix material mesh allows for the assignment of more specific material properties for each component rather than homogenization of all of the properties. However, the implementations of the embedded element technique available in commercial software do not replace the material of the matrix elements with the material of the embedded elements. This causes a redundancy in the volume calculation of the overlapping meshes leading to artificially increased stiffness and mass. This paper investigates the consequences in the energy calculations of an explicit dynamic model due to this redundancy. A method for the correction of the edundancy within a finite element code is suggested which removes extra energy and is shown to be effective at correcting the energy calculations for large amounts of redundant volume.