Jan Niklas Schmäke

Jan Niklas Schmäke, Oliver Wege, Martin Ruess

An extension of the multi-level hp Finite Cell Method is proposed for the simulation of thermoviscoplastic problems with temperature-dependent material behavior. The approach combines hierarchical adaptive refinement with a non-negative moment fitting (NNMF) quadrature scheme for efficient and robust integration of non-linear, history-dependent constitutive models on cut cells. The NNMF formulation yields sparse, positive quadrature rules that significantly reduce the number of integration points while maintaining stability and accuracy. An error-indicator-driven hp-refinement strategy enables localized resolution of strain and thermal gradients during the non-linear solution process. The framework is implemented within a partitioned thermo-mechanical scheme and evaluated on benchmark and application-oriented examples. The results demonstrate improved accuracy and substantial computational savings compared to standard integration approaches.

Jan Niklas Schmäke, Martin Ruess

Localized features such as singularities, sharp gradients, discontinuities, and moving sources require adaptive finite element discretizations. Conventional refinement strategies introduce significant computational overhead through mesh-topology modifications, constraint handling for non-matching interfaces, and repeated remeshing with state transfer. This work presents an unfitted multi-level hp-refinement strategy that enriches a fixed base discretization by independently positioned overlay meshes. The global approximation space is constructed by superposition of the active spaces across all refinement levels, while homogeneous constraints on artificial overlay boundaries ensure global $C^0$ continuity. Coupling between non-matching meshes is assembled over admissible integration regions defined by intersections of element partitions, enabling reuse of standard element-level finite element routines within a lightweight superposition framework. In contrast to fitted multi-level approaches, overlay boundaries are not required to align with underlying mesh interfaces. This reduces inter-level coupling and allows refinement zones to be inserted, translated, and removed without modifying the base discretization. Numerical studies for discontinuous and singular benchmark problems, as well as a moving source, demonstrate the performance of the method. The unfitted approach retains exponential convergence for non-smooth problems and achieves improved error-to-cost ratios compared to fitted multi-level hp-refinement. For representative cases, comparable accuracy is obtained with substantially fewer degrees of freedom, while localized high-order refinement accurately tracks moving features.