Dual formulations in critical state problems (Q851462)

Problems of sandpiles and type II superconductors are examples of spatially extended open dissipative systems. Evolutionary variational inequalities are convenient formulations for continuous models of these problems. But up till now existing variational formulations of the problems are models for critical-state of sandpiles or superconductors, and they are convenient for finding only primary variables (surface of a sandpile, magnetic field in a superconductor). Then the aim of proposed paper is so called dual variational formulation of the problems where also dual variables (sand flux upon the pile surface, electric field in superconductors) have to be found. This dual formulation has some similarities to mixed variational inequalities in elastoplasticity. First the dual formulation of variational inequality for both, sandpiles and superconductor problems is derived. Then under some restrictions of the problem (homogeneous boundary conditions, piecewise constant variable \(k\)) for \(\varepsilon\)-regularization of the non-differentiable functional \(\langle k, | \underline{v}| \rangle\), fully discrete finite element approximation of the dual problem is derived. This approximation uses the lowest order Raviart-Thomas element for spatial discretization with vertex sampling on the non-linear term. Then stability bounds independent on mesh parameters are established. Convergence of the approximation and the existence and uniqueness of a solution of dual variational problem is proved. Finally numerical experiments using proposed aproximation scheme for both, sandpile and superconductors problem are presented.