Donald L. Brown

An energy-stable convex splitting for the phase-field crystal equation

The phase-field crystal equation is solved using a finite element discretization.A mass-conserving, energy-stable, second-order time discretization is developed.The results are proved rigorously, and verified numerically.The implementation is done in PetIGA, an open source isogeometric analysis framework.Three dimensional results showcase the robustness of the method. The phase-field crystal equation, a parabolic, sixth-order and nonlinear partial differential equation, has generated considerable interest as a possible solution to problems arising in molecular dynamics. Nonetheless, solving this equation is not a trivial task, as energy dissipation and mass conservation need to be verified for the numerical solution to be valid. This work addresses these issues, and proposes a novel algorithm that guarantees mass conservation, unconditional energy stability and second-order accuracy in time. Numerical results validating our proofs are presented, and two and three dimensional simulations involving crystal growth are shown, highlighting the robustness of the method.

A Multiscale Method for Porous Microstructures

In this paper we develop a multiscale method to solve problems in complicated porous microstructures with Neumann boundary conditions. By using a coarse-grid quasi-interpolation operator to define a fine detail space and local orthogonal decomposition, we construct multiscale corrections to coarse-grid basis functions with microstructure. By truncating the corrector functions we are able to make a computationally efficient scheme. Error results and analysis are presented. A key component of this analysis is the investigation of the Poincareź and inverse inequality constants in perforated domains as they may contain microstructural information. Using first a theoretical method based on extensions of functions and then a constructive method originally developed for weighted Poincareź inequalities, we are able to obtain estimates on Poincareź constants with respect to scale and separation length of the pores. Finally, two numerical examples are presented to verify our estimates.

Effective equations for fluid-structure interaction with applications to poroelasticity

Modeling of fluid-solid interactions in porous media is a challenging and computationally demanding task. Due to the multiscale nature of the problem, simulating the flow and mechanics by direct numerical simulation is often not feasible and an effective model is preferred. In this work, we formally derive an effective model for Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI). In earlier work, assuming infinitesimal pore-scale deformations, an effective poroelastic model of Biot was derived. We extend this model to a nonlinear Biot model that includes pore-scale deformation into the effective description. The main challenge is the difference in coordinate systems of the fluid and solid equations. This is circumvented by utilizing the Arbitrary Lagrange-Eulerian (ALE) formulation of the FSI equations, giving a unified frame in which to apply two-scale asymptotic techniques. In the derived nonlinear Biot model, the local cell problem are coupled to the macroscopic equations via the effective coefficients. These coefficients may be viewed as tabular functions of the macroscopic parameters. After simplifying this dependence, we assume the coefficients depend on macroscopic pressure only. Using a three dimensional pore geometry we calculate, as a proof-of-concept example, the effective permeability and Biot coefficients for various values or pressure. We observe that, for this geometry, a stronger pressure dependence on flow quantities than on mechanically based effective quantities.

Multiscale Petrov-Galerkin Method for High-Frequency Heterogeneous Helmholtz Equations

This paper presents a multiscale Petrov-Galerkin finite element method for time-harmonic acoustic scattering problems with heterogeneous coefficients in the high-frequency regime. We show that the method is pollution-free also in the case of heterogeneous media provided that the stability bound of the continuous problem grows at most polynomially with the wave number k. By generalizing classical estimates of Melenk (Ph.D. Thesis, 1995) and Hetmaniuk (Commun. Math. Sci. 5, 2007) for homogeneous medium, we show that this assumption of polynomially wave number growth holds true for a particular class of smooth heterogeneous material coefficients. Further, we present numerical examples to verify our stability estimates and implement an example in the wider class of discontinuous coefficients to show computational applicability beyond our limited class of coefficients.

An Efficient Hierarchical Multiscale Finite Element Method for Stokes Equations in Slowly Varying Media

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of fluid flow in porous media with many scales is often not feasible, and an effective or homogenized description is more desirable. To construct the homogenized equations, effective properties must be computed. Computation of effective properties for nonperiodic microstructures can be prohibitively expensive, as many local cell problems must be solved for different macroscopic points. In addition, the local problems may also be computationally expensive. When the microstructure varies slowly, we develop an efficient numerical method for two scales that achieves essentially the same accuracy as that for the full resolution solve of every local cell problem. In this method, we build a dense hierarchy of macroscopic grid points and a corresponding nested sequence of approximation spaces. Essentially, solutions computed in high accuracy approximation spaces at select points in the the hierarchy are used as corrections for the error of the lower accuracy approximation spaces ...

A Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Method for poroelasticity problems II: nonlinear coupling

In this paper, we consider the numerical solution of some nonlinear poroelasticity problems that are of Biot type and develop a general algorithm for solving nonlinear coupled systems. We discuss the difficulties associated with flow and mechanics in heterogenous media with nonlinear coupling. The central issue being how to handle the nonlinearities and the multiscale scale nature of the media. To compute an efficient numerical solution we develop and implement a Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Method (GMsFEM) that solves nonlinear problems on a coarse grid by constructing local multiscale basis functions and treating part of the nonlinearity locally as a parametric value. After linearization with a Picard Iteration, the procedure begins with construction of multiscale bases for both displacement and pressure in each coarse block by treating the staggered nonlinearity as a parametric value. Using a snapshot space and local spectral problems, we construct an offline basis of reduced dimension. From here an online, parametric dependent, space is constructed. Finally, after multiplying by a multiscale partitions of unity, the multiscale basis is constructed and the coarse grid problem then can be solved for arbitrary forcing and boundary conditions. We implement this algorithm on a geometry with a linear and nonlinear pressure dependent permeability field and compute error between the multiscale solution with the fine-scale solutions.

Effective equations governing an active poroelastic medium

In this work, we consider the spatial homogenization of a coupled transport and fluid–structure interaction model, to the end of deriving a system of effective equations describing the flow, elastic deformation and transport in an active poroelastic medium. The ‘active’ nature of the material results from a morphoelastic response to a chemical stimulant, in which the growth time scale is strongly separated from other elastic time scales. The resulting effective model is broadly relevant to the study of biological tissue growth, geophysical flows (e.g. swelling in coals and clays) and a wide range of industrial applications (e.g. absorbant hygiene products). The key contribution of this work is the derivation of a system of homogenized partial differential equations describing macroscale growth, coupled to transport of solute, that explicitly incorporates details of the structure and dynamics of the microscopic system, and, moreover, admits finite growth and deformation at the pore scale. The resulting macroscale model comprises a Biot-type system, augmented with additional terms pertaining to growth, coupled to an advection–reaction–diffusion equation. The resultant system of effective equations is then compared with other recent models under a selection of appropriate simplifying asymptotic limits.

Upscaled Lattice Boltzmann Method for Simulations of Flows in Heterogeneous Porous Media

A upscaled lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for flow simulations in heterogeneous porous media, at both pore and Darcy scales, is proposed in this paper. In the micro-scale simulations, we model flows using LBM with the modified Guo et al. algorithm where we replace the force model with a simple Shan-Chen force model. The proposed upscaled LBM uses coarser grids to represent the effects of the fine-grid (pore-scale) simulations. For the upscaled LBM, effective properties and reduced-order models are proposed as we coarsen the grid. The effective properties are computed using solutions of local problems (e.g., by performing local LBM simulations) subject to some boundary conditions. A upscaled LBM that can reduce the computational complexity of existing LBM and transfer the information between different scales is implemented. The results of coarse-grid, reduced-order, simulations agree very well with averaged results obtained using a fine grid.

Homogenization of High-Contrast Brinkman Flows

Modeling porous flow in complex media is a challenging problem. Not only is the problem inherently multiscale but, due to high contrast in permeability values, flow velocities may differ greatly throughout the medium. To avoid complicated interface conditions, the Brinkman model is often used for such flows [O. Iliev, R. Lazarov, and J. Willems, Multiscale Model. Simul., 9 (2011), pp. 1350--1372]. Instead of permeability variations and contrast being contained in the geometric media structure, this information is contained in a highly varying and high-contrast coefficient. In this work, we present two main contributions. First, we develop a novel homogenization procedure for the high-contrast Brinkman equations by constructing correctors and carefully estimating the residuals. Understanding the relationship between scales and contrast values is critical to obtaining useful estimates. Therefore, standard convergence-based homogenization techniques [G. A. Chechkin, A. L. Piatniski, and A. S. Shamev, Homogen...

Multiscale Modeling of High Contrast Brinkman Equations with Applications to Deformable Porous Media.

Simulating porous media flows has a wide range of applications. Often, these applications involve many scales and multi physical processes. A useful tool in the analysis of such problems in that of homogenization as an averaged description is derived circumventing the need for complicated simulation of the fine scale features. In this work, we recall recent developments of homogenization techniques in the application of flows in deformable porous media. In addition, homogenization of media with high-contrast. In particular, we recall the main ideas of the homogenization of slowly varying Stokes flow and summarize the results of [4]. We also present the ideas for extending these techniques to high-contrast deformable media [3]. These ideas are connected by the modeling of multiscale fluid-structure interaction problems.