Skip to content

Plate subjected to a surface load

Description

Kirchhoff-type plate element is implemented in iks004_kirchhoffPlate.cpp using the automatic differentiation technique as commented before. The basis used for discretization is a NURBS basis from the dune-iga module. The problem is solved, and convergence plots are created by comparing the solutions to the available analytical solutions for the simply supported case.

Code highlights

Similar to the struct named Solid in iks003_incompressible_LinearElasticity.cpp, here a struct named KirchhoffPlate is created. It inherits from ScalarFieldFE and it must be decorated with AutoDiffFE as well to compute the required matrices and vectors. It is constructed as shown below:

KirchhoffPlate(const Basis &basis, const typename LocalView::Element &element, double p_Emodul, double p_nu,
               double p_thickness)
    : BaseDisp(basis.flat(), element),
      Emodul{p_Emodul},
      nu{p_nu},
      thickness{p_thickness} {
  this->localView().bind(element);
  geometry_.emplace(this->localView().element().geometry());
}
It takes in the p_thickness parameter in addition to the ones in Solid. Here, the energy is calculated as: 
energy += (0.5 * kappa.dot(D * kappa) - w * lambda) * geometry_->integrationElement(gp.position()) * gp.weight();
with kappa being the vector of curvature containing \(\kappa_{xx}, \kappa_{yy}\) and \(\kappa_{xy}\). If the boundaries are clamped, the penalty method could be used, for example, to fix the derivatives of the displacements. Here, however, the example for the simply supported case is discussed further.

A two-dimensional NURBS grid is created from the dune-iga module. 

constexpr int griddim                                    = 2; // (1)! 
constexpr int dimworld                                   = 2; // (2)! 
const std::array<std::vector<double>, griddim> knotSpans = { { {0, 0, 1, 1}, {0, 0, 1, 1} } }; // (3)! 
using ControlPoint = Dune::IGA::NURBSPatchData<griddim, dimworld>::ControlPointType;
const double Lx = 1; // (4)! 
const double Ly = 1; // (5)! 

const std::vector<std::vector<ControlPoint>> controlPoints
    = { { {.p = {0, 0}, .w = 1}, {.p = {0, Ly}, .w = 1} }, 
        { {.p = {Lx, 0}, .w = 1}, {.p = {Lx, Ly}, .w = 1} } }; // (6)! 

std::array<int, griddim> dimsize = {2, 2}; // (7)! 

auto controlNet = Dune::IGA::NURBSPatchData<griddim, dimworld>::ControlPointNetType(dimsize, controlPoints); // (8)!
using Grid      = Dune::IGA::NURBSGrid<griddim, dimworld>;

Dune::IGA::NURBSPatchData<griddim, dimworld> patchData;

patchData.knotSpans     = knotSpans; // (9)! 
patchData.degree        = {1, 1}; // (10)! 
patchData.controlPoints = controlNet; // (11)! 
patchData = Dune::IGA::degreeElevate(patchData, 0, 1); // (12)! 
patchData = Dune::IGA::degreeElevate(patchData, 1, 1); // (13)! 
Grid grid(patchData); // (14)!
  1. The dimension of the grid. Here, two-dimensional.
  2. The dimension of the physical space in which the grid lies (the embedding space of the grid). Here, two-dimensional.
  3. The knot vector for the NURBS grid.
  4. Length of the plate
  5. Width of the plate
  6. Control points and the weights for the square plate (the control points are ordered such that all the control points for a particular \(x\)-position are listed first, followed by the subsequent \(x\)-positions in ascending order).
  7. Number of control points in either direction.
  8. Creation of the control net.
  9. Binding the knotSpans to a particular NURBS patchData.
  10. The polynomial degree for the basis in either direction. It can also be calculated from the knotSpans.
  11. Binding the controlNet to a particular NURBS patchData.
  12. Elevating the polynomial degree for the patchData in \(x\)-direction (0) by 1.
  13. Elevating the polynomial degree for the patchData in \(y\)-direction (1) by 1.
  14. Creating the grid object from the patch data

In order to obtain the convergence plots, the system is solved five times, with the refinement level increasing by 1 each time using the command grid.globalRefine(1);. The NURBS basis can be obtained from the freestanding functions nurbs(), as shown below: 

auto basis = Ikarus::makeBasis(gridView, nurbs());
This is followed by specifying the Dirichlet boundary conditions, creating the finite elements and the assembler, solving the system of equations, and post-processing using Paraview as mentioned in the previous examples. The analytical solution for the simply supported case is adapted from Wikipedia and is also mentioned below: 
auto wAna = [&](auto x) {
  double w                = 0.0;
  const int seriesFactors = 40;
  const double pi         = std::numbers::pi;
  auto oddFactors
      = std::ranges::iota_view(1, seriesFactors) | std::views::filter([](auto i) { return i % 2 != 0; });
  for (auto m : oddFactors)
    for (auto n : oddFactors)
      w += sin(m * pi * x[0] / Lx) * sin(n * pi * x[1] / Ly)
           / (m * n * Dune::power(m * m / (Lx * Lx) + n * n / (Ly * Ly), 2));

  return 16 * totalLoad / (Dune::power(pi, 6) * D) * w;
};
The Dune::Functions::makeDiscreteGlobalBasisFunction is used to create a function from the nodal finite element solution of the displacements and the NURBS basis whereas the Dune::Functions::makeAnalyticGridViewFunction is used to create a function by using the function to evaluate the analytical solutions and the gridView to get the position x. Local functions are then created that are used later to calculate the \(L^2\)-error.
auto wGlobalFunction = Dune::Functions::makeDiscreteGlobalBasisFunction<Dune::FieldVector<double, 1>>(basis.flat(), w);
auto wGlobalAnalyticFunction = Dune::Functions::makeAnalyticGridViewFunction(wAna, gridView);
auto localw                  = localFunction(wGlobalFunction);
auto localwAna               = localFunction(wGlobalAnalyticFunction);
The \(L^2\)-error is calculated by using $$ L^2\textrm{-error} = \sqrt{\sum_{ele} \int_{\Omega_{ele}} \left( w_{analytical}-w_{FE} \right)^2} $$ as shown below: 
double l2_error = 0.0;
for (auto &ele : elements(gridView)) {
  localView.bind(ele);
  localw.bind(ele);
  localwAna.bind(ele);
  const auto geo   = localView.element().geometry();
  const auto &rule = Dune::QuadratureRules<double, 2>::rule(ele.type(), 2 * localView.tree().finiteElement().localBasis().order());
  for (auto gp : rule) {
    const auto gpGlobalPos = geo.global(gp.position());

    const auto w_ex = localwAna(gp.position());
    const auto w_fe = localw(gp.position());
    l2_error += Dune::power(w_ex - w_fe, 2) * ele.geometry().integrationElement(gp.position()) * gp.weight();
  }
}
l2_error = std::sqrt(l2_error);
The number of degrees of freedom for each refinement level and its corresponding \(L^2\)-error is pushed to a vector that can be later used to create plots using the features from Matlab. 
std::vector<double> dofsVec;
std::vector<double> l2Evcector;
dofsVec.push_back(basis.flat().size());
l2Evcector.push_back(l2_error);

Takeaways

  • NURBS grids can be created using the dune-iga module.
  • The basis for the corresponding NURBS grid can be obtained using the nurbs() function.
  • The Kirchhoff plate element can be easily implemented by evaluating the energy and using automatic differentiation methods.
  • \(L^2\)-error can be evaluated to perform convergence studies.