In this paper we consider the Virtual Element discretization of a minimal surface problem, a quasi-linear elliptic partial differential equation modeling the problem of minimizing the area of a surface subject to a prescribed boundary condition. We derive optimal error estimate and present several numerical tests assessing the validity of the theoretical results.
We deal with the Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting Dual Primal (FETI-DP) preconditioner for elliptic problems discretized by the virtual element method (VEM). We extend the result of [22] to the three dimensional case. We prove polylogarithm
ic condition number bounds, independent of the number of subdomains, the mesh size, and jumps in the diffusion coefficients. Numerical experiments validate the theory
We address the issue of designing robust stabilization terms for the nonconforming virtual element method. To this end, we transfer the problem of defining the stabilizing bilinear form from the elemental nonconforming virtual element space, whose fu
nctions are not known in closed form, to the dual space spanned by the known functionals providing the degrees of freedom. By this approach, we manage to construct different bilinear forms yielding optimal or quasi-optimal stability bounds and error estimates, under weaker assumptions on the tessellation than the ones usually considered in this framework. In particular, we prove optimality under geometrical assumptions allowing a mesh to have a very large number of arbitrarily small edges per element. Finally, we numerically assess the performance of the VEM for several different stabilizations fitting with our new framework on a set of representative test cases.
Fourth-order differential equations play an important role in many applications in science and engineering. In this paper, we present a three-field mixed finite-element formulation for fourth-order problems, with a focus on the effective treatment of
the different boundary conditions that arise naturally in a variational formulation. Our formulation is based on introducing the gradient of the solution as an explicit variable, constrained using a Lagrange multiplier. The essential boundary conditions are enforced weakly, using Nitsches method where required. As a result, the problem is rewritten as a saddle-point system, requiring analysis of the resulting finite-element discretization and the construction of optimal linear solvers. Here, we discuss the analysis of the well-posedness and accuracy of the finite-element formulation. Moreover, we develop monolithic multigrid solvers for the resulting linear systems. Two and three-dimensional numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the discretization and efficiency of the multigrid solvers proposed.
This paper constructs and analyzes a boundary correction finite element method for the Stokes problem based on the Scott-Vogelius pair on Clough-Tocher splits. The velocity space consists of continuous piecewise quadratic polynomials, and the pressur
e space consists of piecewise linear polynomials without continuity constraints. A Lagrange multiplier space that consists of continuous piecewise quadratic polynomials with respect to boundary partition is introduced to enforce boundary conditions as well as to mitigate the lack of pressure-robustness. We prove several inf-sup conditions, leading to the well-posedness of the method. In addition, we show that the method converges with optimal order and the velocity approximation is divergence free.
We develop a geometrically intrinsic formulation of the arbitrary-order Virtual Element Method (VEM) on polygonal cells for the numerical solution of elliptic surface partial differential equations (PDEs). The PDE is first written in covariant form u
sing an appropriate local reference system. The knowledge of the local parametrization allows us to consider the two-dimensional VEM scheme, without any explicit approximation of the surface geometry. The theoretical properties of the classical VEM are extended to our framework by taking into consideration the highly anisotropic character of the final discretization. These properties are extensively tested on triangular and polygonal meshes using a manufactured solution. The limitations of the scheme are verified as functions of the regularity of the surface and its approximation.