Final Report Summary - NUMSIM (Numerical simulation in technical sciences)
Computer simulation plays an increasing role in technical sciences and allows the detailed investigation of physical phenomena way beyond what can be achieved in the laboratory. It is used extensively in the industry for example for rapid prototyping or for reducing the risk in underground construction.
The aim of the project is to bring together groups of scientists in Latin America and Europe that are working on innovative methods for the computer simulation of physical processes in technical sciences.
The specific topics addressed are:
• Simulation of corrosion protection
Corrosion is a very expensive problem for industry. Estimates indicate that hundreds of millions of Euros are spent annually in the corrosion protection and maintenance of equipment and installations. Although the costs of corrosion protection systems are small compared to the costs of the structures involved, eventual failures may lead to long-term structural damage. The consequences of this decrease in structural integrity may be a shortening of the installation’s useful life or even disasters of huge financial and environmental consequences, with possible loss of life. The most widely used techniques for corrosion protection (CP) are painting and coating, to insulate the metal surface from the corrosive environment, and cathodic protection, which makes use of the electrochemical properties of the metal to be protected. These techniques are mostly often used in combination.
The main objective was to advance existing BEM models for cathodic protection through the coupling of the models with inverse and optimisation techniques, and to develop and validate the use of meshless methods and other novel numerical techniques for cathodic protection.
The work performed can be divided into three parts: the development of meshless methods for cathodic protection and their optimisation; the development of advanced BEM models based on topological optimisation for multiple material problems; and the development of symmetric Galerkin and isogeometric boundary elements for future applications in advanced cathodic protection BEM models. All parts the proposed work has been achieved and software has been developed to validate the novel numerical formulations.
• Computer graphics and adaptive coupling
There is a wide range of modelling approaches for numerical simulations, and the most commonly applied numerical methods are: the Finite Difference Method (FDM), the Finite
Element Method (FEM), the Boundary Element Method (BEM), the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and the Meshfree Methods. The main advantage of the BEM over the other methods is the reduction of the model dimension by one, leading to a much simpler mesh generation. However, the BEM is not as efficient as the FEM in dealing with non-linear effects. One important characteristic in the numerical simulation is that in most of the engineering problems the nonlinear behaviour is concentrated on small portions of the total domain.
Therefore, the numerical simulations of complex systems demand the development of adaptive coupling techniques which are able to detect and identify regions of the model where one numerical method becomes more suitable than the others. The appropriate development of adaptive coupling techniques strongly depends on reliable Geometric Modelling and Mesh Generation tools and requires the investigations of important topics, such as: coupled solution strategy; distributed computing methods; optimum design of multiphysics problems; and application in science and engineering.
The work performed was on the development and implementation of mathematical models, data structures and algorithms of computer graphics that support graphic interactive software for technical and scientific applications. Therefore, a great part of our work was devoted to the development of pre- and post-processing systems for FEM, BEM, DEM and meshless models (mesh generation, attribute application, and result visualization), including adaptive simulation techniques particularly for problems related to crack propagation in solids, sequential excavation of tunnels and automatic identification of nonlinearities in a model.
• High performance computing
The impressive advances in computer hardware occurred during the last decades have enabled engineers to challenge nature with progressively more complex and comprehensive computational models. Many problems are so large and/or complex that it is impractical or impossible to solve them on a single computer, especially given limited computer memory. As a consequence, the software technology has evolved increasing its complexity in such a way that the old single threaded programming paradigm is becoming superseded by parallel computing. Parallel computer programs are more difficult to write than sequential ones since it is necessary to communicate and synchronize the different subtasks. The objective of the work was to develop high performance parallel computing tools for the solution of large scale engineering problems. The work done includes the development of a special framework for solving fluid-structure interaction problems, development of parallel Boundary Element software .
The main outcome of the project is the development of advanced simulation tools for the industry that go beyond the state of the art. This includes the development of software and the training of participants in advanced modelling techniques. It should be noted here that the funding provided for this project was only to cover mobilities. Whilst, this has certainly been beneficial to the development of the innovations, the actual work was funded by other (national) research agencies (Science without borders, Austrian research fund ...).
The aim of the project is to bring together groups of scientists in Latin America and Europe that are working on innovative methods for the computer simulation of physical processes in technical sciences.
The specific topics addressed are:
• Simulation of corrosion protection
Corrosion is a very expensive problem for industry. Estimates indicate that hundreds of millions of Euros are spent annually in the corrosion protection and maintenance of equipment and installations. Although the costs of corrosion protection systems are small compared to the costs of the structures involved, eventual failures may lead to long-term structural damage. The consequences of this decrease in structural integrity may be a shortening of the installation’s useful life or even disasters of huge financial and environmental consequences, with possible loss of life. The most widely used techniques for corrosion protection (CP) are painting and coating, to insulate the metal surface from the corrosive environment, and cathodic protection, which makes use of the electrochemical properties of the metal to be protected. These techniques are mostly often used in combination.
The main objective was to advance existing BEM models for cathodic protection through the coupling of the models with inverse and optimisation techniques, and to develop and validate the use of meshless methods and other novel numerical techniques for cathodic protection.
The work performed can be divided into three parts: the development of meshless methods for cathodic protection and their optimisation; the development of advanced BEM models based on topological optimisation for multiple material problems; and the development of symmetric Galerkin and isogeometric boundary elements for future applications in advanced cathodic protection BEM models. All parts the proposed work has been achieved and software has been developed to validate the novel numerical formulations.
• Computer graphics and adaptive coupling
There is a wide range of modelling approaches for numerical simulations, and the most commonly applied numerical methods are: the Finite Difference Method (FDM), the Finite
Element Method (FEM), the Boundary Element Method (BEM), the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and the Meshfree Methods. The main advantage of the BEM over the other methods is the reduction of the model dimension by one, leading to a much simpler mesh generation. However, the BEM is not as efficient as the FEM in dealing with non-linear effects. One important characteristic in the numerical simulation is that in most of the engineering problems the nonlinear behaviour is concentrated on small portions of the total domain.
Therefore, the numerical simulations of complex systems demand the development of adaptive coupling techniques which are able to detect and identify regions of the model where one numerical method becomes more suitable than the others. The appropriate development of adaptive coupling techniques strongly depends on reliable Geometric Modelling and Mesh Generation tools and requires the investigations of important topics, such as: coupled solution strategy; distributed computing methods; optimum design of multiphysics problems; and application in science and engineering.
The work performed was on the development and implementation of mathematical models, data structures and algorithms of computer graphics that support graphic interactive software for technical and scientific applications. Therefore, a great part of our work was devoted to the development of pre- and post-processing systems for FEM, BEM, DEM and meshless models (mesh generation, attribute application, and result visualization), including adaptive simulation techniques particularly for problems related to crack propagation in solids, sequential excavation of tunnels and automatic identification of nonlinearities in a model.
• High performance computing
The impressive advances in computer hardware occurred during the last decades have enabled engineers to challenge nature with progressively more complex and comprehensive computational models. Many problems are so large and/or complex that it is impractical or impossible to solve them on a single computer, especially given limited computer memory. As a consequence, the software technology has evolved increasing its complexity in such a way that the old single threaded programming paradigm is becoming superseded by parallel computing. Parallel computer programs are more difficult to write than sequential ones since it is necessary to communicate and synchronize the different subtasks. The objective of the work was to develop high performance parallel computing tools for the solution of large scale engineering problems. The work done includes the development of a special framework for solving fluid-structure interaction problems, development of parallel Boundary Element software .
The main outcome of the project is the development of advanced simulation tools for the industry that go beyond the state of the art. This includes the development of software and the training of participants in advanced modelling techniques. It should be noted here that the funding provided for this project was only to cover mobilities. Whilst, this has certainly been beneficial to the development of the innovations, the actual work was funded by other (national) research agencies (Science without borders, Austrian research fund ...).