On FE-grid relocation in solving unilateral boundary value problems by FEM (Q1194269)

The article is concerned with grid relocation for finite element methods with a fixed number of mesh nodes and fixed degree of the local basis functions, applied either to Poisson's equation with unilateral boundary conditions, or to the problem of a forced elastic body on a rigid foundation. Relocation of the nodal points takes place according to a nonlinear optimization process searching for the minimum (with respect to nodal displacement) of the potential energy of the discrete system. It is shown how the corresponding functionals and their gradients (with respect to the displacement vector) can be computed from known discrete quantities. Numerical examples illustrate the method; here, the nonlinear optimization problem is solved numerically by a sequential quadratic programming code.