Abstract
Adaptive anisotropic refinement of finite element meshes allows one to reduce the computational effort required to achieve a specified accuracy of the solution of a PDE problem. We present a new approach to adaptive refinement and demonstrate that this allows one to construct algorithms which generate very flexible and efficient anisotropically refined meshes, even improving the convergence order compared to adaptive isotropic refinement if the problem permits.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This condition may also be formulated in terms of a change in element orientation, if the elements are stored with clockwise ordering of the nodes, for example.
Again, this condition can be formulated in terms of a change in element orientation.
References
Aguilar, J., Goodman, J.: Anisotropic mesh refinement for finite element methods based on error reduction. J. Comput. Appl. Math. 193, 497–515 (2006)
Ainsworth, M., Oden, J.: A Posteriori Error Estimation in Finite Element Analysis. Wiley, New York (2000)
Apel, T.: Anisotropic Finite Elements: Local Estimates and Applications. Teubner, Leipzig (1999)
Apel, T., Grosman, S., Jimack, P., Meyer, A.: A new methodology for anisotropic mesh refinement based upon error gradients. Appl. Numer. Math. 50, 329–341 (2004)
Apel, T., Nicaise, S.: The finite element method with anisotropic mesh grading for elliptic problems in domains with corners and edges. Math. Methods Appl. Sci. 21(6), 519–549 (1998). doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1476(199804)21:6<519::AID-MMA962>3.0.CO;2-R
Bangerth, W., Rannacher, R.: Adaptive Finite Element Methods for Differential Equations. Birkhäuser, Basel (2003)
Bank, R., Smith, R.: A posteriori error estimates based on hierarchical bases. SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 30(4), 921–935 (1993)
Bänsch, E.: Local mesh refinement in 2 and 3 dimensions. Impact Comput. Sci. Eng. 3, 181–191 (1991)
Borouchaki, H., George, P., Hecht, F., Laug, P., Saltel, E.: Delaunay mesh generation governed by metric specifications. Part I. Algorithms. Finite Elem. Anal. Des. 25, 61–83 (1997). doi:10.1016/S0168-874X(96)00057-1
Bürg, M., Dörfler, W.: Convergence of an adaptive \(hp\) finite element strategy in higher space-dimension. Appl. Numer. Math. 61, 1132–1146 (2011)
Cao, W.: On the error of linear interpolation and the orientation, aspect ratio, and internal angles of a triangle. SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 43, 19–40 (2005)
Dolejsi, V.: Anisotropic mesh adaptation for finite volume and finite element methods on triangular meshes. Comput. Vis. Sci. 1, 165–178 (1998)
Dörfler, W., Heuveline, V.: Convergence of an adaptive \(hp\) finite element strategy in one space dimension. Appl. Numer. Math. 57, 1108–1124 (2007)
Elman, H., Silvester, D., Wathen, A.: Finite Elements and Fast Iterative Solvers. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)
Formaggia, L., Micheletti, S., Perotto, S.: Anisotropic mesh adaptation in computational fluid dynamics: application to the advection-diffusion-reaction and the Stokes problems. Appl. Numer. Math. 51(4), 511–533 (2004)
Fortin, M.: Anisotropic mesh adaptation through hierarchical error estimators. In: P. Minev, Y. Lin (eds.) Scientific computing and applications, vol. 7, pp. 53–65. Nova Science Publishers, New York (2001)
Grosman, S.: Adaptivity in anisotropic finite element calculations. Ph.D. thesis, TU-Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany (2006)
Habashi, W., Dompierre, J., Bourgault, Y., Ait-Ali-Yahia, D., Fortin, M., Vallet, M.G.: Anisotropic mesh adaptation: towards user-independent, mesh-independent and solver-independant CFD. Part I: general principles. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 32, 725–744 (2000)
Hecht, F.: Bidimensional anisotropic mesh generator. Technical report, INRIA, Rocquencourt (1997). Software: http://www.ann.jussieu.fr/hecht/ftp/bamg/
Huang, W., Kamenski, L., Lang, J.: A new anisotropic mesh adaptation method based upon hierarchical a posteriori error estimates. J. Comput. Phys. 229(6), 2179–2198 (2010)
Kelly, D., de Gago, S.R.J., Zienkiewicz, O., Babuska, I.: A posteriori error analysis and adaptive processes in the finite element method: Part I—error analysis. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng. 19, 1593–1619 (1983)
Kornhuber, R., Roitzsch, R.: On adaptive grid refinement in the presence of internal or boundary layers. Impact Comput. Sci. Eng. 2, 40–72 (1990)
Kunert, G., Verfürth, R.: Edge residuals dominate a posteriori error estimates for linear finite element methods on anisotropic triangular and tetrahedral meshes. Numer. Math. 86, 283–303 (2000)
Li, X., Shephard, M., Beall, M.: 3d anisotropic mesh adaptation by mesh modification. Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 194, 4915–4950 (2005)
Mahmood, R., Jimack, P.: Locally optimal unstructured finite element meshes in 3 dimensions. Comput. Struct. 82(23–26), 2105–2116 (2004)
Mitchell, W.: Optimal multilevel iterative methods for adaptive grids. SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 13(1), 146–167 (1992)
Picasso, M., Alauzet, F., Borouchaki, H., George, P.L.: A numerical study of some Hessian recovery techniques on isotropic and anisotropic meshes. SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 33(3), 1058–1076 (2011)
Richter, T.: A posteriori error estimation and anisotropy detection with the dual-weighted residual method. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 62(1), 90–118 (2010)
Roos, H.G., Stynes, M., Tobiska, L.: Robust Numerical Methods for Singularly Perturbed Differential Equations, Springer Series in Computational Mathematics, vol. 24, 2nd edn. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Beuchler, S., Meyer, A.: SPC-PM3AdH v1.0 - Programmer’s Manual. Technical report Preprint SFB393/01-08, TU Chemnitz, Chemnitz (2001). Available at http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/sfb393/
Schneider, R.: A review of anisotropic refinement methods for triangular meshes in fem. In: Apel, T., Steinbach, O. (eds.) Advanced Finite Element Methods and Applications, Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics, vol. 66, pp. 133–152. Springer, Berlin, (2013). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30316-6_6
de Gago, S.R., Kelly, D., Zienkiewicz, O., Babuska, I.: A posteriori error analysis and adaptive processes in the finite element method: Part II—adaptive mesh refinement. Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 19, 1621–1656 (1983)
Wang, D., Li, R., Yan, N.: An edge-based anisotropic mesh refinement algorithm and its application to interface problems. Commun. Comput. Phys. 8(3), 511–540 (2010). doi:10.4208/cicp.210709.121109a
Acknowledgments
We thank all those who have contributed to this work by providing ideas, comments and suggestions during discussions, especially Thomas Apel, Arnd Meyer and Thomas Mach.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Randolph E. Bank.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schneider, R. Towards practical anisotropic adaptive FEM on triangular meshes: a new refinement paradigm. Comput. Visual Sci. 15, 247–270 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00791-013-0212-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00791-013-0212-5