Dr Bishnu Lamichhane

We present a stabilised finite element method for the Stokes equations. The stabilisation is based on a biorthogonal system, which preserves the locality of the approach. We present a priori error estimates of the presented scheme and demonstrate some numerical results.

Locusts are short horned grasshoppers that exhibit two behaviour types depending on their local population density. These are: solitarious, where they will actively avoid other locusts, and gregarious where they will seek them out. It is in this gregarious state that locusts can form massive and destructive flying swarms or plagues. However, these swarms are usually preceded by the aggregation of juvenile wingless locust nymphs. In this paper we attempt to understand how the distribution of food resources affect the group formation process. We do this by introducing a multi-population partial differential equation model that includes non-local locust interactions, local locust and food interactions, and gregarisation. Our results suggest that, food acts to increase the maximum density of locust groups, lowers the percentage of the population that needs to be gregarious for group formation, and decreases both the required density of locusts and time for group formation around an optimal food width. Finally, by looking at foraging efficiency within the numerical experiments we find that there exists a foraging advantage to being gregarious.

A solution method is developed for a linear model of ice shelf flexural vibrations in response to ocean waves, in which the ice shelf thickness and seabed beneath the ice shelf vary over distance, and the ice shelf/sub-ice-shelf cavity are connected to the open ocean. The method combines a decomposition of the ice shelf displacement profile at a prescribed frequency of motion into mode shapes of free vibrations, a finite-element method for the cavity water motion and a non-local operator to connect to the open ocean. An investigation is conducted into the effects of ice shelf thickening, seabed shoaling and the grounding-line conditions on time-harmonic ice shelf vibrations, induced by regular incident waves in the swell regime. Furthermore, results are given for ice shelf vibrations in response to irregular incident waves by superposing time-harmonic responses, and ocean-to-ice-shelf transfer functions are derived. The findings add to evidence that ice shelves experience appreciable flexural vibrations in response to swell, and that ice shelf thickening and seabed shoaling can have a considerable influence on predictions of how ice shelves respond to ocean waves.

We compare a recently proposed multivariate spline based on mixed partial derivatives with two other standard splines for the scattered data smoothing problem. The splines are defined as the minimiser of a penalised least squares functional. The penalties are based on partial differential operators, and are integrated using the finite element method. We compare three methods to two problems: to remove the mixture of Gaussian and impulsive noise from an image, and to recover a continuous function from a set of noisy observations.

This study investigates the use of a nonlinear model based on the penalisation approach to couple fluid flow and porous media flow. The problem is formulated using a unified Brinkman equation on the domain with a nonlinear permeability which is given a function of porosity, which in turn is governed by an advection equation. The permeability is assumed to be governed by the Kozeny¿Carman equation which relates the permeability with the average grain size and porosity. The model is solved using an adaptive finite element method in space and the method of characteristics in time. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the model and discuss possible extensions.

Dye-sensitized solar cells consistently provide a cost-effective avenue for sources of renewable energy, primarily due to their unique utilization of nanoporous semiconductors. Through mathematical modelling, we are able to uncover insights into electron transport to optimize the operating efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cells. In particular, fractional diffusion equations create a link between electron density and porosity of the nanoporous semiconductors. We numerically solve a fractional diffusion model using a finite-difference method and a finite-element method to discretize space and an implicit finite-difference method to discretize time. Finally, we calculate the accuracy of each method by evaluating the numerical errors under grid refinement.

We consider a saddle-point formulation for a sixth-order partial differential equation and its finite element approximation, for two sets of boundary conditions. We follow the Ciarlet-Raviart formulation for the biharmonic problem to formulate our saddle-point problem and the finite element method. The new formulation allows us to use the H1-conforming Lagrange finite element spaces to approximate the solution. We prove a priori error estimates for our approach. Numerical results are presented for linear and quadratic finite element methods.

The frequency-domain and time-domain response of a floating ice shelf to wave forcing are calculated using the finite element method. The boundary conditions at the front of the ice shelf, coupling it to the surrounding fluid, are written as a special non-local linear operator with forcing. This operator allows the computational domain to be restricted to the water cavity beneath the ice shelf. The ice shelf motion is expanded using the in vacuo elastic modes and the method of added mass and damping, commonly used in the hydroelasticity of ships, is employed. The ice shelf is assumed to be of constant thickness while the fluid domain is allowed to vary. The analysis is extended from the frequency domain to the time domain, and the resonant behaviour of the system is studied. It is shown that shelf submergence affects the resonant vibration frequency, whereas the corresponding mode shapes are insensitive to the submergence in constant depth. Further, the modes are shown to have a property of increasing node number with increasing frequency.

An initial-boundary value problem for a time-fractional diffusion equation is discretized in space, using continuous piecewise-linear finite elements on a domain with a re-entrant corner. Known error bounds for the case of a convex domain break down, because the associated Poisson equation is no longer -regular. In particular, the method is no longer second-order accurate if quasi-uniform triangulations are used. We prove that a suitable local mesh refinement about the re-entrant corner restores second-order convergence. In this way, we generalize known results for the classical heat equation.

The thin plate spline method is a widely used data fitting technique as it has the ability to smooth noisy data. Here we consider a mixed finite element discretisation of the thin plate spline. By using mixed finite elements the formulation can be defined in-terms of relatively simple stencils, thus resulting in a system that is sparse and whose size only depends linearly on the number of finite element nodes. The mixed formulation is obtained by introducing the gradient of the corresponding function as an additional unknown. The novel approach taken in this paper is to work with a pair of bases for the gradient and the Lagrange multiplier forming a biorthogonal system thus ensuring that the scheme is numerically efficient, and the formulation is stable. Some numerical results are presented to demonstrate the performance of our approach. A preconditioned conjugate gradient method is an efficient solver for the arising linear system of equations.

We consider a mixed finite element method for approximating the solution of nearly incompressible elasticity and Stokes equations. The finite element method is based on quadrilateral and hexahedral triangulation using primal and dual meshes. We use the standard bilinear and trilinear finite element space enriched with element-wise defined bubble functions with respect to the primal mesh for the displacement or velocity, whereas the pressure space is discretized by using a piecewise constant finite element space with respect to the dual mesh. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We present two simple finite element methods for the discretization of Reissner-Mindlin plate equations with clamped boundary condition. These finite element methods are based on discrete Lagrange multiplier spaces from mortar finite element techniques. We prove optimal a priori error estimates for both methods. The first approach is based on a so-called standard Lagrange multiplier space for the mortar finite element method, where the Lagrange multiplier basis functions are continuous. The second approach is based on a so-called dual Lagrange multiplier space, where the Lagrange multiplier basis functions are discontinuous. The advantage of using the second approach is that easy static condensation of degrees of freedom corresponding to the Lagrange multiplier is possibly leading to a symmetric positive definite formulation. © 2013 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We consider a mixed finite element method based on simplicial triangulations for a three-field formulation of linear elasticity. The three-field formulation is based on three unknowns: displacement, stress and strain. In order to obtain an efficient discretization scheme, we use a pair of finite element bases forming a biorthogonal system for the strain and stress. The biorthogonality relation allows us to statically condense out the strain and stress from the saddle-point system leading to a symmetric and positive-definite system. The strain and stress can be recovered in a post-processing step simply by inverting a diagonal matrix. Moreover, we show a uniform convergence of the finite element approximation in the incompressible limit. Numerical experiments are presented to support the theoretical results. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

The uniform convergence of finite element approximations based on a modified Hu-Washizu formulation for the nearly incompressible linear elasticity is analyzed. We show the optimal and robust convergence of the displacement-based discrete formulation in the nearly incompressible case with the choice of approximations based on quadrilateral and hexahedral elements. These choices include bases that are well known, as well as newly constructed bases. Starting from a suitable three-field problem, we extend our a-dependent three-field formulation to geometrically nonlinear elasticity with Saint-Venant Kirchhoff law. Additionally, an a-dependent three-field formulation for a general hyperelastic material model is proposed. A range of numerical examples using different material laws for small and large strain elasticity is presented. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.