Elimination of spurious modes in finite element analysis (Q759463)

Causes of the spurious (non-physical) modes appearance are looked for when working with finite difference or finite element methods in eigenvalue problems. An analogy is drawn between electromagnetic wave propagation and acoustic wave propagation in liquids to show that the spurious modes encountered in both cases are due to fundamentally the same cause. It is shown that these non-physical modes are the result of an excessively flexible system (the ambiguity in the problem statement). This ambiguity is removed by constraining the problem. The problem with restriction is solved by adding a functional to be minimized, improved with a penalty term. This functional is used in the calculation of the eigenvalues leading to satisfactory results. Special attention is payed to the parameter of penalty, studying the influence upon the quality of the results.