ANN Sided Polygonal Edge Based Smoothed Finite Element Method NES FEM For Solid Mechanics

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
Int. J. Numer. Meth. Biomed. Engng. (2010)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/cnm.1375
COMMUNICATIONS IN NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING
An n-sided polygonal edge-based smoothed finite element method

(nES-FEM) for solid mechanics
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T. Nguyen-Thoi1,3, , , G. R. Liu1,2 and H. Nguyen-Xuan2,3

for Advanced Computations in Engineering Science (ACES), Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore
2 Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA), E4-04-10, 4 Engineering Drive 3, Singapore 117576, Singapore
3 Department of Mechanics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Science, Vietnam
National UniversityHCM, 227 Nguyen Van Cu, District 5, Hochiminh City, Vietnam
1 Center
SUMMARY
ol
de
nb
a
An edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) using triangular elements was recently proposed
to improve the accuracy and convergence rate of the existing standard finite element method (FEM) for
the elastic solid mechanics problems. In this paper the ES-FEM is further extended to a more general
case, n-sided polygonal edge-based smoothed finite element method (nES-FEM), in which the problem
domain can be discretized by a set of polygons, each with an arbitrary number of sides. The simple
averaging point interpolation method is suggested to construct nES-FEM shape functions. In addition,
a novel domain-based selective scheme of a combined nES/NS-FEM model is also proposed to avoid
volumetric locking. Several numerical examples are investigated and the results of the nES-FEM are found
to agree well with exact solutions and are much better than those of others existing methods. Copyright
q 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 7 July 2009; Revised 23 November 2009; Accepted 23 November 2009
numerical methods; finite element method (FEM); smoothed finite element methods
(S-FEM); edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM); node-based smoothed
finite element method (NS-FEM); polygonal element
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KEY WORDS:
1. INTRODUCTION
w
w
The strain smoothing technique has been proposed by Chen et al. [1] to stabilize the solutions
in the context of the meshfree method [2, 3] and then applied in the natural element method [4].
Liu [5] has generalized the gradient (strain) smoothing technique and applied it in the meshfree
context to formulate the node-based smoothed point interpolation method (NS-PIM or LC-PIM)
[6, 7] and the node-based smoothed radial point interpolation method (NS-RPIM or LC-RPIM)
[8]. Applying the same idea to the finite element method (FEM), a cell-based smoothed finite
element method (SFEM or CS-FEM) [912] and a node-based smoothed finite element method
(NS-FEM) [13, 14] have also been formulated.
In the CS-FEM, the domain discretization is still based on quadrilateral elements as in FEM;
however, the stiffness matrices are calculated based over smoothing cells (SC) located inside the
quadrilateral elements as shown in Figure 1. When the number of SC of the elements equals
1, the CS-FEM solution has the same properties with those of FEM using reduced integration.
Correspondence
to: T. Nguyen-Thoi, Center for Advanced Computations in Engineering Science (ACES), Department
of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore.
E-mail: g0500347@nus.edu.sg
Copyright q
2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
T. NGUYEN-THOI, G. R. LIU AND H. NGUYEN-XUAN
6
4
4
y
2 1
(b)
3
4
8
(c)
2 1
(d)
: field nodes
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(a)
: virtual nodes to form the smoothing cells
nb
a
Figure 1. Division of quadrilateral element into the smoothing cells (SCs) in

CS-FEM by connecting the mid-segment-points of opposite segments of smoothing
cells: (a) 1 SC; (b) 2 SCs; (c) 4 SCs; and (d) 8 SCs.
w
w
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When SC approaches infinity, the CS-FEM solution approaches to the solution of the standard
displacement compatible FEM model [10]. In practical calculation, using four smoothing cells
for each quadrilateral element in CS-FEM is easy to implement, work well in general and hence
advised for all problems. The numerical solution of CS-FEM (SC = 4) is always stable, accurate,
much better than FEM, and often very close to the exact solutions. The CS-FEM has been developed
for general n-sided polygonal elements (nCS-FEM) [15] dynamic analyses [16], incompressible
materials using selective integration [17, 18], plate and shell analyses [1923], and further extended
for the extended finite element method (XFEM) to solve fracture mechanics problems in 2D
continuum and plates [24].
In the NS-FEM, the strain smoothing domains and the integration of the weak form are
performed over the smoothing domains associated with nodes. The NS-FEM works well for triangular elements, and can be applied easily to general n-sided polygonal elements [13, 14] for 2D
problems and tetrahedral elements for 3D problems. For n-sided polygonal elements, the smoothing
domain (k) associated with the node k is created by connecting sequentially the mid-edge-point
to the central points of the surrounding n-sided polygonal elements of the node k as shown in
Figure 2. When only linear triangular or tetrahedral elements are used, the NS-FEM produces the
same results as the method proposed by Dohrmann et al. [25] or to the LC-PIM [6] using linear
interpolation. The NS-FEM [13, 14] has been found immune naturally from volumetric locking
and possesses the upper bound property in strain energy as presented in [26]. Hence, by combining
NS-FEM and FEM with a scale factor [0, 1], a new method named as the alpha finite element
method (FEM) [27] is proposed to obtain nearly exact solutions in strain energy using triangular
and tetrahedral elements. The NS-FEM has been developed for adaptive analysis [28], primal-dual
shakedown [29], 2D and 3D visco-elastoplastic analyses [30]. One disadvantage of NS-FEM is its
larger bandwidth of stiffness matrix compared with that of FEM, because the number of nodes
related to the smoothing domains associated with nodes is larger than that related to the elements.
The computational cost of NS-FEM therefore is larger than that of FEM for the same meshes used.
Recently, an edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) [31] was also been formulated for static, free and forced vibration analyses in 2D problems. In the ES-FEM, the problem
domain is also discretized using triangular elements as in FEM; however, the stiffness matrices
are calculated based on smoothing domains associated with the edges of the triangles. For triangular elements, the smoothing domain (k) associated with the edge k is created by connecting
two endpoints of the edge to the centroids of the adjacent elements as shown in Figure 3.
The numerical results demonstrated that the ES-FEM [31] possesses the following excellent
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DOI: 10.1002/cnm
(nES-FEM) FOR SOLID MECHANICS
(k)
node
k
(k)
: field node
: mid-edge point
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: central point of n-sided polygonal elements
Figure 2. n-sided polygonal elements and the smoothing domain (shaded area)
associated with nodes in the NS-FEM.
boundary
edge m
D
inner edge k
(k)
(m)
(k)
(m)
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: field node
: centroid of triangles
Figure 3. Triangular elements and the smoothing domains (shaded areas)

associated with edges in the ES-FEM.
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properties: (1) ES-FEM is often found super-convergent and much more accurate than FEM using
triangular elements (FEM-T3) and even more accurate than FEM using quadrilateral elements
(FEM-Q4) with the same sets of nodes; (2) there are no spurious non-zeros energy modes and hence
ES-FEM is both spatial and temporal stable and works well for vibration analysis; (3) no additional
degree of freedom is used; (4) a novel domain-based selective scheme is proposed leading to a
combined ES/NS-FEM model that is immune from volumetric locking and hence works very
well for nearly incompressible materials. Note that similar to NS-FEM, the bandwidth of stiffness
matrix in ES-FEM is larger than that in FEM-T3; hence, the computational cost of ES-FEM is
larger than that of FEM-T3. However, when the efficiency of computation (computation time for
the same accuracy) in terms of both energy and displacement error norms is considered, ES-FEM is
more efficient [31]. ES-FEM has been developed for 2D piezoelectric [32], 2D visco-elastoplastic
[33], plate [34] and primaldual shakedown analyses [35]. In addition, the idea of the ES-FEM is
quite straightforward to extend for the 3D problems using tetrahedral elements to give a so-called
the face-based smoothed finite element method (FS-FEM) [36, 37].
In this paper, we aim to extend the ES-FEM to even more general case, i.e. n-sided polygonal
edge-based smoothed finite element method (or nES-FEM) in which the problem domain can be
discretized by a set of polygons, each with an arbitrary number of sides. The simple averaging
point interpolation method is suggested to construct nES-FEM shape functions. In addition, a
novel domain-based selective scheme of a combined nES/NS-FEM model is also proposed to
avoid volumetric locking. Several numerical examples are investigated and the results found agree
well with exact solutions and are much better than those of other existing methods. Note that,
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more information about the interpolants as well as the new integration techniques for the n-sided
polygonal elements can be found in Refs [3843].
The paper is outlined as follows. In Section 2, the idea of the nES-FEM is introduced. In
Section 3, the construction of nES-FEM shape function is presented and the domain-based selective
scheme nES/NS-FEM for nearly incompressible materials is described briefly in Section 4. Section
5 presents numerical implementations of the nES-FEM. Some numerical examples are presented
and examined in Section 6 and some concluding remarks are made in the Section 7.
2. BRIEFING OF nES-FEM
2.1. Briefing on the FEM [4446]
The discrete equations of the FEM are generated from the Galerkin weakform and the integration
is performed on the basis of element as follows:

T
T
(1)
(s u) D(s u) d u b d
uT t d = 0
t
uh (x) =
Nn

I =1
nb
a
where b is the vector of external body forces, D is a symmetric positive-definite (SPD) matrix
of material constants, t is the prescribed traction vector on the natural boundary t , u is trial
functions, u is test functions and s u is the symmetric gradient of the displacement field.
The FEM uses the following trial and test functions:
N I (x)d I ,
uh (x) =
Nn
I =1
N I (x)d I
(2)
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where Nn is the total number of nodes of the problem domain, d I is the nodal displacement vector
and N I (x) is the shape function matrix of I th node.
By substituting the approximations, uh and uh , into the weakform and invoking the arbitrariness
of virtual nodal displacements, Equation (1) yields the standard discretized system of algebraic
equation:
KFEM d = f
(3)
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where KFEM is the stiffness matrix, f is the element force vector that is assembled with entries of

FEM
KIJ = BTI DB J d
(4)
fI =

NTI (x)b d+
t
NTI (x)t d
(5)
with the straindisplacement matrix defined as

(6)
B I (x) = s N I (x)
2.2. An nES-FEM
In the nES-FEM, the domain discretization is still based on polygonal elements of arbitrary number
of sides, but the integration using strain smoothing technique [1] is performed based on the edges
of the elements. In such an edge-based integration process, the problem domain is divided into
Ned (k)
smoothing domains associated with edges such that = k=1
and (i) ( j ) = , i = j , in
which Ned is the total number of edges of the problem domain. For n-sided polygonal elements,
the smoothing domain (k) associated with the edge k is created by connecting two endpoints of
the edge to the two central points of the two adjacent elements as shown in Figure 4.
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boundary edge m (AB)
(m)
(ABI )
(m)
(AB, BI, IA)
edge k
(CD)
(k)
(CKDO)
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K
(k)
(CK,KD,DO,OC)
: central point of elements (I, O, K)
nb
a
: field node
Figure 4. Domain discretization and the smoothing domains (shaded areas) associated with edges
of n-sided polygonal elements in the nES-FEM.
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Applying the edge-based smoothing operation, the compatible strains = s u used in Equation (1) is used to create a smoothed strain on the smoothing domain (k) associated with edge k:

k =
(x)k (x) d=
s u(x)k (x) d
(7)
(k)
(k)
where k (x) is a given smoothing function that satisfies at least unity property

k (x) d= 1
(k)
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Using the following constant smoothing function:

1/A(k) , x (k)
k (x) =
0,
x
/ (k)
(8)
(9)
w
w
where A(k) is the area of the smoothing domain (k) , and applying a divergence theorem, one can
obtain the smoothed strain

1
k = (k)
n(k) (x)u(x) d
(10)
A
(k)
where (k) is the boundary of the domain (k) as shown in Figure 4, and n(k) (x) is the outward
normal vector matrix on the boundary (k) and has the following form for 2D problems:
(k)
nx
0
(k)
(11)
n(k) (x) = 0 n y
n (k)
n (k)
y
x
In the nES-FEM, the trial function uh (x) is the same as in Equation (2) of the FEM and therefore
the force vector f in the nES-FEM is calculated in the same way as in the FEM.
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Substituting Equation (2) into Equation (10), the smoothed strain on the domain (k) associated
with edge k can be written in the following matrix form of nodal displacements:

I (xk )d I
k =
B
(12)
(k)
I Nn
(k)
and it is calculated numerically using

1
(k)
b I h (xk ) = (k)
n h (x)N I (x) d,
A
(k)
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I (xk )
where Nn is the total number of nodes of elements attached with the common edge k and B
is termed as the smoothed straindisplacement matrix on the domain (k) ,
b I x (xk )
0
I y (xk )
(13)
B I (xk ) =
0
b
b I y (xk ) b I x (xk )
(h = x, y)
(14)
nb
a
When a linear compatible displacement field along the boundary (k) is used, one Gaussian
(k)
point is sufficient for line integration along each segment of boundary i of (k) , the above
equation can be further simplified to its algebraic form
M
1
(k)
n (k) N I (xGP
b I h (xk ) = (k)
i )l i ,
A i=1 ih
(h = x, y)
(15)
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is the midpoint (Gaussian

where M is the total number of the boundary segments of i(k) , xGP
i
(k)
(k)
point) of the boundary segment of i , whose length and outward unit normal are denoted as li
(k)
and n ih
, respectively.
Equation (15) implies that only shape function values at some particular points along segments
(k)
of boundary i are needed and no explicit analytical form is required. This gives tremendous
freedom in shape function construction. It is therefore that a simple averaging method is suggested
to construct nES-FEM shape functions in Section 3.
of the system is then assembled by a similar process as in the FEM
The stiffness matrix K
.g
IJ =
K
N
ed
k=1
(k)
K
IJ
(16)
w
w
(k) is the stiffness matrix associated with edge k and is calculated by

where K
IJ

(k)
TI DB
J d = B
TI DB
J A(k)
KIJ =
B
(k)
(17)
3. CONSTRUCTION OF nES-FEM SHAPE FUNCTION
In the nES-FEM, by using the smoothed strain of the cell (k) associated with the edge k, the
domain integration becomes line integration along the boundary (k) of the cell. Only the shape
functions themselves at some particular points along segments of boundary are used and no explicit
analytical form is required. When a linear compatible displacement field along the boundary (k)
is used, one Gauss point at midpoint on each edge is sufficient for accurate boundary integration.
The values of the shape functions at these Gauss points, e.g. #g1 on the segment 1-A shown in
Figure 5, are evaluated averagely using the values of shape functions of two related nodes on the
segment: points #1 and #A.
In order to construct a linear compatible displacement field along the boundary (k) of the cell,
the following conditions of the shape functions for the discrete points of an n-sided polygonal
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4
5
3
A
g2
g3
g4
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g1
: Gauss point
: central point of n-sided polygonal element
: field node
Figure 5. Gauss points of the smoothing domains associated with edges for n-sided
polygonal elements in the nES-FEM.
nb
a
n
element need to be satisfied:
n (i) delta function: Ni (x j ) = ij ; (ii) partition of unity: i=1 Ni (x) = 1;
(iii) linear consistency: i=1 Ni (x)xi = x; (iv) linear shape functions along lines connecting the
central point and field points, e.g. line A-6 or line B-6; (v) values of the shape functions for the
central points of n-sided polygonal elements, e.g. points #A or #B, are evaluated as

1
1 1
(size : 1n)
(18)
...
n n
n
with the coordinates of the central points calculated simply using
n
1
xi ,
n i=1
yc =
n
1
yi
n i=1
(19)
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xc =
w
w
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where the number of nodes n of the n-sided polygonal element may be different from one element
to the other and x i , yi are the coordinates of nodes of the n-sided polygonal element.
The condition (iii) is essential to reproduce the linear polynomial fields such as in the standard
patch test. With conditions (iv) and (v), a linear compatible displacement field along the boundary
(k) of the cell (k) associated with the edge k is constructed.
Figure 5 and Table I demonstrate explicitly the shape function values at different points of the
smoothing domain associated with the edge 16. The number of support nodes for the smoothing
(k)
(k)
domain is 9 (from #1 to #9). We have 4 segments i on (1A, A6, 6B, B1). Each segment
needs only one Gauss point, and therefore, there are a total of four Gauss points (g1, g2, g3, g4)
used for the entire smoothing domain (k) , and the shape function values at these four Gauss
points can be tabulated in Table I by simple inspection.
The simple averaging shape functions presented above create a continuous displacement field on
the whole domain of the problem. The strain field of these non-mapped shape functions includes
the piecewise constant functions that are not continuous on the edges of elements and on the
edges of smoothing cells. With such a construction, the simple averaging shape functions of the
nES-FEM are similar to those in the nCS-FEM [15] and the nNS-FEM [13] using the n-sided
polygonal elements.
It should be mentioned that the purpose of introducing the central points is to facilitate the
evaluation of the shape function at the Gauss points and to ensure the linear compatible property
along the edges of the cell connecting the central point and field points. No extra degrees of
freedom are associated with these points. In other words, these points carry no additional field
variables. This means that the nodal unknowns in the nES-FEM are the same as those in the FEM
of the same mesh.
It is easy to see that the linear shape function of triangular elements of the standard FEM
satisfy naturally the five above conditions. Hence, the nES-FEM can be applied easily to traditional
triangular elements without any modification.
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Table I. Shape function values at different sites on the smoothing domain boundary associated
with the edge 16 in Figure 5.
Site Node 1 Node 2 Node 3 Node 4 Node 5 Node 6 Node 7 Node 8 Node 9
B
g1
g2
g3
0
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
1
6
1
5
7
12
1
12
1
10
6
10
1
6
1
6
1
6
1
6
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
12
1
6
1
5
1
12
7
12
6
10
1
10
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
1
5
0
0
1
10
1
10
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1.0
0
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Field node
Centroid of element
1
5
1
5
Centroid of element
Mid-segment of i
Mid-segment of i
1
10
1
10
1
10
1
10
Mid-segment of i
(k)
(k)
(k)
(k)
Mid-segment of i
nb
a
g4
1.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
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1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
Description
Different from the standard isoparametric finite elements, the nES-FEM obtains shape functions
without using coordinate transformation or mapping. Hence, the field domain can be discretized
in a much more flexible way.
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4. A DOMAIN-BASED SELECTIVE SCHEME: A COMBINED nES/NS-FEM
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Volumetric locking appears when the Poissons ratio approaches 0.5. The application of selective
formulations in the conventional FEM [47] has been found effectively to overcome such a locking
and hence the similar idea is employed in this paper. However, different from the FEM using
selective integration [47], our selective scheme will use two different types of smoothing domains
selectively for two different material parts (-part and -part). Since the node-based smoothing
domains used in the NS-FEM were found effective in overcoming volumetric locking [13] and the
-part is known as the culprit of the volume locking, we use node-based domains for the -part
and edge-based domains for the -part. The details are given below.
The material property matrix D for isotropic materials can be decomposed as
w
w
D = D1 +D2
(20)
where D1 relates to the shearing modulus = E/[2(1+)] and hence is termed as -part of D,
and D2 relates to Lames parameter = 2/(12) and hence is termed as -part of D. For plane
strain cases, we have
1 1 0
2 0 0
+2

0
+2 0 = 0 2 0 + 1 1 0 = D1 +D2
(21)
D=
0
and for axis-symmetric problems, we
2 0 0
0 2 0
D =
0 0 1
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0 0 1
0 0 0
have
1 1 0 1
0
1 1 0 1
0
+
0 0 0 0 = D1 +D2
0
1 1 0 1
0 0 0 2
(22)

DOI: 10.1002/cnm
In our domain-based selective scheme proposed, we use the nNS-FEM to calculate the stiffness
matrix related to -part and the nES-FEM to calculate the one related to the -part. The stiffness
matrix of the combined nES/NS-FEM model becomes
=
K
N
ed
Nn

j
i Ai +
j Aj
(B i1 )T D1 B
(B 2 )T D2 B
1 1
2 2
i=1
j =1

nESFEM
K
1
(23)
nNSFEM
K
2
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where B i1 and Ai1 are the smoothed straindisplacement matrix and area of the smoothing domain
(i)
j and A j are the smoothed straindisplacement
ed associated with edge i, correspondingly; B
2
2
( j)
matrix and area of the smoothing domain n associated with node j , correspondingly; Nn is the
total number of nodes of the problem domain.
5. NUMERICAL IMPLEMENTATION
5.1. Domain discretization with polygonal elements of the Voronoi diagram
nb
a
The discretization of a problem domain into n-sided convex polygonal elements can be performed
using the Voronoi diagram, and the procedure can be described as follows [48].
The problem domain and its boundaries are first discretized by a set of properly scattered points
P := { p1, p2 , . . ., pn }. Based on the given points, the domain is further decomposed into the same
number of Voronoi cells C := {C1, C2 , . . ., Cn } according to the nearest-neighbor rule defined by
Ci = {x 2 : d(x, xi )<d(x, x j ), j = i} i
ol
de
(24)
w
w
.g
In numerical implementation, as illustrated in Figure 6(a), the obtained Voronoi diagram has
not cell vertices along the boundaries, then the artificial nodes along the boundary outside the
domain need to be added to enclose the cells at the boundaries. With this, the boundary cells
are then bounded, but the vertices of these cells do not fall within the problem domain as shown
in Figure 6(b). Next, these vertices will be shifted inwards onto the boundaries as shown in
Figure 6(c). The final shape of these Voronoi cells is generally irregular but they are all convex
polygons. The initial point pi is regarded as the representative point of the ith element. Once we
get the information of these Voronoi diagrams, a set of polygonal elements is then formed for our
numerical analysis.
boundary of domain
boundary of domain
boundary of domain
4.5
4.5
4.5
3.5
3.5
3.5
2.5
2.5
2.5
2
1.5
1.5
1.5
0.5
0.5
0.5
0
0
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 6. (a) Voronoi diagram without adding the artificial nodes along the boundary outside
the domain; (b) Voronoi diagram with the artificial nodes added along the boundary outside the
domain; and (c) final Voronoi diagram.
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The following points need to be noted: (i) The original discrete points P only serve as numerical
devices for domain decomposition and do not function in the following numerical analysis; (ii) If
we prefer more regular elements, such as rectangular elements, hexagon elements, we need to
arrange a special point pattern P before the generation of Voronoi diagrams; (iii) For demonstration
purpose, we arrange the initial points in an arbitrary form in the following numerical examples
regardless of the issue of computational cost. As a result, the number of elements sides is generally
changing from element to element; (iv) The nES-FEM does not require the elements to be convex;
(v) Triangular elements used in the FEM can be used directly in the nES-FEM without any
alterations.
5.2. Procedure of the nES-FEM
The numerical procedure for the nES-FEM is briefly as follows:
1. Divide the domain into a set of elements and obtain information on nodes coordinates and
element connectivity;
2. Determine the area of cells (k) associated with edge k and find neighboring elements of
each edge;
3. Loop over all the edges:
Determine the nodal connecting information of cell (k) associated with edge k;
Determine the outward unit normal of each boundary side for cell (k) ;
I (xk ) using Equation (13);
Compute the matrix B
Evaluate the stiffness matrix using Equation (17) and force vector of the current cell;
Assemble the contribution of the current smoothing domain to form the system stiffness
matrix using Equations (16) and force vector;
nb
a
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
ol
de
4. Implement essential boundary conditions;

5. Solve the system of equations to obtain the nodal displacements;
6. Evaluate strains and stresses at nodes of interest.
.g
In the nES-FEM, the value of strains (or stresses) at the node i will be average value of strains
(or stresses) of the smoothing domains (k) associated with edges k around the node i, and is
calculated numerically by
(i)
ed
1 N
k A(k)
i = (i)
A k=1
(25)
(i)
w
w
where Ned is the total number of edges connecting directly to node i, k and A(k) are the strain
and the area of the smoothing domain (k) associated with edge k around the node i,respectively,
Ned(i) (k)
and A(i) = k=1
A .
5.3. Rank test for the stiffness matrix

Property 1: The nES-FEM possesses only legal zero-energy modes that represents the rigid
motions, and there exists no spurious zero-energy mode. This is ensured by the following reasons:
(i) The numerical integration used to evaluate Equation (17) in the nES-FEM satisfies the
necessary condition given in Section 6.1.3 in Reference [2]. This is true for all possible
nES-FEM models, as detailed in Table II.
(ii) The edge strain smoothing operation ensures linearly independent columns (or rows) in the
stiffness matrix due to the independence of these smoothing domains.
(iii) The shape functions used in the nES-FEM are of partition of unity.
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Table II. Existence of spurious zero-energy modes in an element.

nES-FEM
n Q = 3, N Q = 3n Q = 9
n t = 3, Nu = 2n t = 6
Triangle
N Q >Nu N R
NR = 3
spurious zero energy modes
n Q = 1, N Q = 3n Q = 3
n t = 3, Nu = 2n t = 6
N Q = Nu N R
spurious zero energy

modes not possible
nb
a
not possible
FEM with reduced

integration
se
.v
n
Type of element
n Q = 4, N Q = 3n Q = 12
n Q = 1, N Q = 3n Q = 3
n t = 4, Nu = 2n t = 8
n t = 4, Nu = 2n t = 8
N Q >Nu N R
N Q <Nu N R
spurious zero energy
not possible
modes possible
Quadrilateral
.g
ol
de
NR = 3
n Q = n, N Q = 3n Q = 3n
n sided polygonal
n t = n, Nu = 2n t = 2n
(n>4)
N Q >Nu N R
NR = 3
w
w
Not applicable
not possible
Note: N R : number of DOFs of rigid motion; n t : number of nodes; n Q : number of quadrature points/cells;
Nu : number of total DOFs; N Q : number of independent equations.
Therefore, no deformed zero-energy mode will appear in the nES-FEM. In other words, any
deformation (except the rigid motions) will result in strain energy in an nES-FEM model.
5.4. Standard patch test
Satisfaction of the standard patch test requires that the displacements of all the interior nodes follow
exactly (to machine precision) the same linear function of the imposed displacement. A domain
discretization of a square patch using 36 n-sided polygonal elements is shown in Figure 7. The
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5
4.5
4
3.5
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1
nb
a
se
.v
n
Figure 7. Domain discretization of a square patch using 36 n-sided polygonal elements.
ol
de
following error norm in displacements is used to examine the computed results

2Nn
h
i=1 |u i u i |
100%
ed =
2Nn
i=1 |u i |
(26)
where u i is the exact solution and u hi is the numerical solution.

The parameters are taken as E = 100, = 0.3 and the linear displacement field is given by
u=x
(27)
v=y
w
w
.g
It is found that the nES-FEM can pass the standard patch test within machine precision with
the error norm in displacements: ed = 2.56e12 (%).
6. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
In this section, some example will be analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness, accuracy and
convergence properties of the present method. The results of the nES-FEM will be compared with
those of the n-sided polygonal element-based smoothed finite element method (nCS-FEM) [15]
and the n-sided polygonal node-based smoothed finite element method (nNS-FEM) [13]. In order
to study the convergence rate of the present method, two norms are used here. The displacement
error norm is given in Equation (26) and the energy error norm is calculated by

1/2
Ns
1
ee =
( (k) )T D( (k) )A(k)
(28)
2 k=1
where (k) and A(k) are the smoothing strain and the area of the smoothing domain (k) , respectively; is the analytical strain calculated at the nodes (for nNS-FEM), or at edge-mid-points (for
nES-FEM), or at the central points of smoothing domains (k) (for nCS-FEM); Ns is the total
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number of smoothing domains. Note that the convergence rates of the error norms are calculated
based on the average length of sides of the elements by

A
h=
(29)
Ne
where A is the area of the whole problem domain.
se
.v
n
6.1. Cantilever loaded at the end
nb
a
A cantilever with length L and height D is studied as a benchmark here, which is subjected to a
parabolic traction at the free end as shown in Figure 8. The cantilever is assumed to have a unit
thickness so that plane stress condition is valid. The analytical solution is available and can be
found in a textbook by Timoshenko and Goodier [49].

Py
D2
2
ux =
(6L 3x)x +(2+) y
6E I
4
(30)

2
P
D x
3y 2 (L x)+(4+5)
uy =
+(3L x)x 2
6E I
4
ol
de
where the moment of inertia I for a beam with rectangular cross section and unit thickness is
given by I = D 3 /12.
The stresses corresponding to the displacements equation (30) are

P(L x)y
P D2
(31)
xx (x, y) =
, yy (x, y) = 0, xy (x, y) =
y2
I
2I
4
The related parameters are taken as E = 3.0107 kPa, = 0.3, D = 12 m, L = 48 m and P =
1000 N. In the computations, the nodes on the left boundary are constrained using the exact
displacements obtained from Equation (30) and the loading on the right boundary uses the
distributed parabolic shear stresses in Equation (31). The domain discretization using n-sided
polygonal elements is shown in Figure 9.
.g
w
w
P
x
Figure 8. Cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end.
5
0
5
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Figure 9. Domain discretization of the cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end
using n-sided polygonal elements.
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Normal stress xx
2000
Analytical solution
1000
0
nb
a
se
.v
n
Figure 10 shows that all the computed stresses using nES-FEM agree well with the analytical
solutions. The convergence of the strain energy is shown in Figure 11. It is seen that the nCS-FEM
model behaves overly stiff and hence gives a lower bound, and nNS-FEM behaves overly soft
and gives an upper bound. The nES-FEM has a very close-to-exact stiffness and hence is most
accurate. The convergences of displacement and energy norms are demonstrated in Figures 12 and
13, respectively. It is observed that nES-FEM not only has smaller errors than those of nNS-FEM
and nCS-FEM, but also has higher convergence rates in both norms.
Figure 15 shows the influence of the point distribution in the nES-FEM by comparing the
evolution of strain energy of two sets of meshes: one set with regular meshes as shown in Figure 14
y (x=0)
Analytical solution
ol
de
Shear stress xy
0
y (x=0)
.g
Figure 10. Normal stress xx and shear stress xy along the section of x = 0 using nES-FEM for the
cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end.
5
Strain energy
w
w
4.8
4.6
4.4
4.2
4
3.8
Analytical solution
3.6
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Degrees of freedom
Figure 11. Convergence of the strain energy solution of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for
the cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end.
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0.1
0.2
log10h
0.3
se
.v
n
log10ee
0.4
0.5
nb
a
Figure 12. Error in energy norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for the cantilever
subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end.
ol
de
and one set with irregular meshes as shown in Figure 9. It is seen that the regular meshes give more
accurate results than the irregular meshes.
Figure 16 compares the computation time of three methods using the same direct full-matrix
solver. It is found that with the same sets of nodes, the computation time of the nES-FEM is only
shorter than that of the nNS-FEM. However, when the efficiency of computation (CPU time for
the same accuracy) in terms of both displacement and energy norms is considered as shown in
Figures 17 and 18, the nES-FEM model stands out clearly as a winner.
Table III compares the evolution of the conditioning number with mesh density between nCSFEM and nES-FEM. It is seen that the conditioning numbers of nES-FEM are little less than those
of nCS-FEM.
6.2. Semi-infinite plane
.g
The semi-infinite plane shown in Figure 19 is studied subjected to a uniform pressure within a
finite range (axa). The plane strain condition is considered. The analytical stresses are given
by [49]
p
[2(
1
2 )sin 2
1 +sin 2
2 ]
2
p
[2(
1
2 )+sin 2
1 sin 2
2 ]
22 =
2
p
[cos 2
1 cos 2
2 ]
12 =
2
w
w
11 =
(32)
The directions of
1 and
2 are indicated in Figure 19. The corresponding displacements can
be expressed as

p(12 ) 12
r1
u1 =
[(x +a)
1 (x a)
2 ]+2y ln
E
1
r2

p(12 ) 12
1
(33)
y(
1
2 )+2H arctan +2(x a) lnr2
u2 =
E
1
c

2(x +a) lnr1 +4a ln a +2a ln(1+c2)
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0.1
0.2
0.3
log10h
se
.v
n
log10ed
0.5
0.4
0.5
5
0
5
5
10
15
20
25
30
ol
de
nb
a
Figure 13. Error in displacement norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for the cantilever
35
40
45
Figure 14. A domain discretization using regular meshes of the cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction
at the free end using n-sided polygonal elements.
4.5
.g
4.48
w
w
Strain energy
4.46
4.44
4.42
4.4
4.38
Analytical solution
4.36
500
1000
1500
2000
Degrees of freedom
2500
3000
Figure 15. Influence of the point distribution in the strain energy solution of the nES-FEM for the cantilever
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se
.v
n
log10 CPU time (seconds)
2.6
2.8
3.2
3.4
log10Degrees of freedom
nb
a
Figure 16. Comparison of the computation time of different methods for solving the cantilever
subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end. For the same distribution of nodes, the nCS-FEM is
the fastest to deliver the results.
ol
de
log 10 ed
0.5
.g
0.5
w
w
0.5
1.5
log 10 CPU times (seconds)
Figure 17. Comparison of the efficiency (computation time for the solutions of same accuracy
measured in displacement norm) for solving the cantilever subjected to a parabolic traction
at the free end. The nES-FEM stands out as a winner.
where H = ca is the distance from the origin to point O , the vertical displacement is assumed to
be zero and c is a coefficient.
Owing to the symmetry about the y-axis, the problem is modeled with a 5a 5a square with
a = 0.2 m, c = 100 and p = 1 MPa. The left side is subjected the symmetric boundary condition
of displacement and the bottom side is constrained using the exact displacements given by
Equation (32). The right side is subjected to tractions computed from Equation (33). Figure 20
gives the discretization of the domain using n-sided polygonal elements.
From Figures 21 and 22, it is observed that all the computed displacements and stresses using
nES-FEM agree well with the analytical solutions. It is also noticed that the present stresses are
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se
.v
n
log10ee
0.5
1
log10 CPU times (seconds)
1.5
nb
a
Figure 18. Comparison of the efficiency of computation time in terms of energy norm of the cantilever
subjected to a parabolic traction at the free end. The nES-FEM stands out clearly as a winner.
Table III. Comparison of the evolution of the conditioning number with mesh
density between nCS-FEM and nES-FEM.
Mesh density
164
6.58e+11
6.46e+11
328
4010
4812
8.25e+13
8.18e+13
1.22e+14
1.21e+14
1.99e+13
1.96e+13
2.25e+14
2.20e+14
w
w
.g
ol
de
nCS-FEM
nES-FEM
246
Figure 19. Semi-infinite plane subjected to a uniform pressure.
very smooth though no post-processing is performed for them. The convergence of the strain energy
is shown in Figure 23. Again, it is seen that the nCS-FEM gives a lower bound, nNS-FEM gives an
upper bound and nES-FEM is most accurate. The convergence rates in displacement and stresses
are displayed in Figure 24 and Figure 25, respectively. It is observed again that both displacement
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0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
nb
a
se
.v
n
0.4
Figure 20. Domain discretization of the semi-infinite plane problem using n-sided polygonal elements.
ol
de
and energy norms of the nES-FEM not only have smaller errors than those of nNS-FEM and
nCS-FEM, but also have the faster convergence rate.
Figure 26 shows the error in displacement for nearly incompressible material when Poissons
ratio is changed from 0.4 to 0.4999999. The results show that the proposed selective scheme in
Section 4 can overcome the volumetric locking for nearly incompressible materials and gives better
results than those of the nNS-FEM.
6.3. A cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure
w
w
.g
Figure 27 shows a thick cylindrical pipe, with internal radius a = 0.1 m, external radius b = 0.2 m,
subjected to an internal pressure p = 600 kN/m2 . Because of the axi-symmetric characteristic of
the problem, we only calculate for one quarter of cylinder as shown in Figure 27, and Figure 28
gives the discretization of the domain using n-sided polygonal elements. Plane strain condition is
considered and Youngs modulus E = 21 000 kN/m2 , Poissons ratio = 0.3. Symmetric conditions
are imposed on the left and bottom edges, and outer boundary is traction free. The exact solution
for the stress components is [49]
r (r ) =

b2
a2 p
1
,
b2 a 2
r2
(r ) =

b2
a2 p
1+
,
b2 a 2
r2
r = 0
(34)
whereas the radial and tangential exact displacements are given by

(1+)a 2 p
b2
,
u r (r ) =
(12)r +
r
E(b2 a 2 )
u = 0
(35)
where (r, ) are the polar coordinates, and is measured counter-clockwise from the positive
x-axis.
From Figure 29, it is observed again that all the computed displacements and stresses agree
well with the analytical solutions. The present stresses are also very smooth. The convergence
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nESFEM
Analytical solution
0
0.5
1
1.5
0.2
0.4
0.6
x (y=0)
6
8
10
nESFEM
Analytical solution
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
nb
a
Displacement v
12
0.8
se
.v
n
Displacement u
0.5
x (y=0)
Figure 21. Computed and exact displacements of nodes along the free surface (y = 0)
of the semi-infinite plane problem.
x 105
ol
de
x 104
0.6
Analytical solution
nESFEM
0.8
1
stress yy
1.2
3
4
5
6
w
w
0.2
(a)
0.4
0.6
x (y = 1)
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
.g
stress xx
2.2
2.4
Analytical solution
nESFEM
2.6
0.8
(b)
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
x (y = 1)
Figure 22. Computed and exact stresses of nodes along bottom side (y = 1) for the
semi-infinite plane problem: (a) stress xx and (b) stress yy .
of the strain energy is shown in Figure 30. It is again seen that the nCS-FEM gives a lower
bound, nNS-FEM gives an upper bound and nES-FEM is most accurate. The convergence rates
in displacement and stresses are displayed in Figures 31 and 32, respectively. Once again, it is
observed that both displacement and energy norms of the nES-FEM not only have smaller errors
than those of nNS-FEM and nSFEM, but also have the faster convergence rate.
Figure 34 shows the influence of the point distribution in the nES-FEM by comparing the evolution of strain energy of two sets of meshes: one set with regular meshes as shown in Figure 33
and one set with irregular meshes as shown in Figure 28. It is seen that the regular meshes give
more accurate results than the irregular meshes.
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4.59
x 105
4.58
4.56
4.55
4.54
4.53
4.52
se
.v
n
Strain energy
4.57
nCSFEM
nNSFEM
4.51
nESFEM
Analytical solution
4.5
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
Degrees of freedom
nb
a
Figure 23. Convergence of the strain energy solution of nES-FEM in comparison with
other methods for the semi-infinite plane problem.
1.7
log10ee
ol
de
1.6
1.5
1.4
.g
1.3
nCSFEM (r=0.99)
nNSFEM (r=1.09)
nESFEM (r=1.12)
1.2
1.4
1.3
1.2
log10h
w
w
1.5
Figure 24. Error in energy norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for
the semi-infinite plane problem.
Figure 35 again shows that the proposed selective scheme in Section 4 can overcome the
volumetric locking for nearly incompressible materials, and gives better results than those of the
nNS-FEM.
7. CONCLUSIONS
ES-FEM [31] was recently proposed to improve the accuracy and convergence rate of the standard
FEM. In this work, the ES-FEM is extended to more general case, i.e. n-sided polygonal edge-based
smoothed finite element method (or nES-FEM) in which the problem domain can be discretized by
a set of polygons, each with an arbitrary number of sides. The simple averaging method is suggested
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se
.v
n
log10ed
nCSFEM (r=2.04)
nNSFEM (r=1.46)
nESFEM (r=2.12)
2
1.5
1.4
1.3
log10h
1.2
0.9
nNSFEM
nESFEM
0.8
nb
a
Figure 25. Error in displacement norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods
for the semi-infinite plane problem.
Selective nES/NSFEM
0.6
ol
de
Displacement norm ed
0.7
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
.g
0
0.4
0.49
0.499
0.4999
0.49999
Poissons ratio
0.499999
0.4999999
w
w
Figure 26. Error in displacement norm for different Poissons ratios of the selective
nES/NS-FEM in comparison with other methods for the semi-infinite plane problem.
b
r
a
o
p
p
o
Figure 27. A thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure and its quarter model.
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0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
se
.v
n
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
nb
a
Figure 28. Discretization of the domain using n-sided polygonal elements of the thick
cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
x 105
10
ol
de
5.5
stress
4.5
3.5
8
6
2
0
.g
Radial displacement ur
Analytical solu.
nESFEM
3
0.1
w
w
0.12
(a)
0.14
0.16
Analytical solu. of
nESFEM solu. of
Analytical solu. of r
nESFEM solu. of r
2
4
0.18
6
0.1
0.2
(b)
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
Figure 29. Computed and exact results of nodes along the x-axis (y = 0) of the thick
cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure: (a) radial displacement u r ; (b) radial
stress r and tangential stress
.
to construct nES-FEM shape functions. The novel domain-based selective scheme ES/NS-FEM
proposed in the ES-FEM is extended to the nES-FEM to give a combined nES/NS-FEM model
that is immune from volumetric locking. Several numerical examples are investigated and the
results of the nES-FEM are found to agree well with exact solutions and are much better than
those of others existing methods in displacement and energy norms, both in the accuracy and the
convergence rate. In addition, in comparison of the stiffness of models, the nES-FEM is softer than
the nCS-FEM (which gives a lower bound) and stiffer than the nNS-FEM (which gives an upper
bound). The nES-FEM is hence between the nCS-FEM and nNS-FEM, and is closer than the
exact solution compared with the nCS-FEM and nNS-FEM. Depending on the specific problems,
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0.26
nCSFEM
nNSFEM
nESFEM
Analytical solution
0.2595
0.259
Strain energy
0.2585
0.258
0.2575
0.2565
0.256
0.2555
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Degrees of freedom
se
.v
n
0.257
1400
1600
1800
Figure 30. Convergence of the strain energy solution of nES-FEM in comparison with other
methods for the thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
nb
a
1.4
1.8
ol
de
log10ee
1.6
2.2
2.2
2.1
1.9
nCSFEM (r=0.95)
nNSFEM (r=0.99)
nESFEM (r=1.15)
1.8
log10h
log10ed
w
w
.g
Figure 31. Error in energy norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for the
thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
0.5
nCSFEM (r=1.84)
nNSFEM (r=1.89)
nESFEM (r=2.63)
1.5
2.2
2.1
1.9
1.8
log10h
Figure 32. Error in displacement norm of nES-FEM in comparison with other methods for
the thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
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0.2
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.12
se
.v
n
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
nb
a
Figure 33. A domain discretization using regular meshes of the thick cylindrical pipe
subjected to an inner pressure.
0.2573
nESFEM (irregular meshes)

nESFEM (regular meshes)
Analytical solution
0.2572
0.257
ol
de
Strain energy
0.2571
0.2569
0.2568
0.2567
0.2566
200
400
600
800
1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
.g
Degrees of freedom
4.5
nNSFEM
nESFEM
Selective nES/NSFEM
4
3.5
Displacement norm ed
w
w
Figure 34. Influence of the point distribution in the strain energy solution of the nES-FEM
for the thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.4
0.49
0.499
0.4999
0.49999
Poissons ratio
0.499999 0.4999999
Figure 35. Error in displacement norm for different Poissons ratios of the selective nES/NS-FEM
in comparison with other methods for the thick cylindrical pipe subjected to an inner pressure.
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the strain energy of nES-FEM can be overestimated or underestimated compared with the exact
solution.
REFERENCES
w
w
.g
ol
de
nb
a
se
.v
n
1. Chen JS, Wu CT, Yoon S, You Y. A stabilized conforming nodal integration for Galerkin meshfree method.
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 2000; 50:435466.
2. Liu GR. Meshfree Methods: Moving Beyond the Finite Element Method. CRC Press: Boca Raton, U.S.A., 2002.
3. Nguyen VP, Rabczuk T, Bordas S, Duflot M. Meshless methods: review and key computer implementation
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

Int. J. Numer. Meth. Biomed. Engng. (2010)