John W. Barrett

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

Biomembranes and vesicles consisting of multiple phases can attain a multitude of shapes, undergoing complex shape transitions. We study a Cahn--Hilliard model on an evolving hypersurface coupled to Navier--Stokes equations on the surface and in the surrounding medium to model these phenomena. The evolution is driven by a curvature energy, modelling the elasticity of the membrane, and by a Cahn--Hilliard type energy, modelling line energy effects. A stable semidiscrete finite element approximation is introduced and, with the help of a fully discrete method, several phenomena occurring for two-phase membranes are computed.

John W. Barrett, Leonid Prigozhin

Existence of a solution to the quasi-variational inequality problem arising in a model for sand surface evolution has been an open problem for a long time. Another long-standing open problem concerns determining the dual variable, the flux of sand pouring down the evolving sand surface, which is also of practical interest in a variety of applications of this model. Previously, these problems were solved for the special case in which the inequality is simply variational. Here, we introduce a regularized mixed formulation involving both the primal (sand surface) and dual (sand flux) variables. We derive, analyse and compare two methods for the approximation, and numerical solution, of this mixed problem. We prove subsequence convergence of both approximations, as the mesh discretization parameters tend to zero; and hence prove existence of a solution to this mixed model and the associated regularized quasi-variational inequality problem. One of these numerical approximations, in which the flux is approximated by the divergence-conforming lowest order Raviart-Thomas element, leads to an efficient algorithm to compute not only the evolving pile surface, but also the flux of pouring sand. Results of our numerical experiments confirm the validity of the regularization employed.

John W. Barrett, Klaus Deckelnick, Vanessa Styles

We consider a finite element approximation for a system consisting of the evolution of a closed planar curve by forced curve shortening flow coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation on the evolving curve. The scheme for the curve evolution is based on a parametric description allowing for tangential motion, whereas the discretisation for the PDE on the curve uses an idea from [6]. We prove optimal error bounds for the resulting fully discrete approximation and present numerical experiments. These confirm our estimates and also illustrate the advantage of the tangential motion of the mesh points in practice.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

We introduce unconditionally stable finite element approximations for a phase field model for solidification, which take highly anisotropic surface energy and kinetic effects into account. We hence approximate Stefan problems with anisotropic Gibbs--Thomson law with kinetic undercooling, and quasi-static variants thereof. The phase field model is given by {align*} \vartheta\,w_t + λ\,\varrho(φ)\,φ_t & = \nabla \,.\, (b(φ)\,\nabla\, w) \,, \cPsi\,\tfrac{a}α\,\varrho(φ)\,w & = ε\,\tfracρα\,μ(\nabla\,φ)\,φ_t -ε\,\nabla \,.\, A'(\nabla\, φ) + ε^{-1}\,Ψ'(φ) {align*} subject to initial and boundary conditions for the phase variable $φ$ and the temperature approximation $w$. Here $ε> 0$ is the interfacial parameter, $Ψ$ is a double well potential, $\cPsi = \int_{-1}^1 \sqrt{2\,Ψ(s)}\;{\rm d}s$, $\varrho$ is a shape function and $A(\nabla\,φ) = \tfrac12\,|γ(\nabla\,φ)|^2$, where $γ$ is the anisotropic density function. Moreover, $\vartheta \geq 0$, $λ> 0$, $a > 0$, $α> 0$ and $ρ\geq 0$ are physical parameters from the Stefan problem, while $b$ and $μ$ are coefficient functions which also relate to the sharp interface problem. On introducing the novel fully practical finite element approximations for the anisotropic phase field model, we prove their stability and demonstrate their applicability with some numerical results.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

We introduce unconditionally stable finite element approximations for anisotropic Allen--Cahn and Cahn--Hilliard equations. These equations frequently feature in phase field models that appear in materials science. On introducing the novel fully practical finite element approximations we prove their stability and demonstrate their applicability with some numerical results. We dedicate this article to the memory of our colleague and friend Christof Eck (1968--2011) in recognition of his fundamental contributions to phase field models.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

We present natural axisymmetric variants of schemes for curvature flows introduced earlier by the present authors and analyze them in detail. Although numerical methods for geometric flows have been used frequently in axisymmetric settings, numerical analysis results so far are rare. In this paper, we present stability, equidistribution, existence and uniqueness results for the introduced approximations. Numerical computations show that these schemes are very efficient in computing numerical solutions of geometric flows as only a spatially one-dimensional problem has to be solved. The good mesh properties of the schemes also allow them to compute in very complex axisymmetric geometries.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

We critically compare the practicality and accuracy of numerical approximations of phase field models and sharp interface models of solidification. Particular emphasis is put on Stefan problems, and their quasi-static variants, with applications to crystal growth. New approaches with a high mesh quality for the parametric approximations of the resulting free boundary problems and new stable discretizations of the anisotropic phase field system are taken into account in a comparison involving benchmark problems based on exact solutions of the free boundary problem.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

A finite element method for the evolution of a two-phase membrane in a sharp interface formulation is introduced. The evolution equations are given as an $L^2$--gradient flow of an energy involving an elastic bending energy and a line energy. In the two phases Helfrich-type evolution equations are prescribed, and on the interface, an evolving curve on an evolving surface, highly nonlinear boundary conditions have to hold. Here we consider both $C^0$-- and $C^1$--matching conditions for the surface at the interface. A new weak formulation is introduced, allowing for a stable semidiscrete parametric finite element approximation of the governing equations. In addition, we show existence and uniqueness for a fully discrete version of the scheme. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the approach can deal with a multitude of geometries. In particular, the paper shows the first computations based on a sharp interface description, which are not restricted to the axisymmetric case.

John W. Barrett, Xiaobing Feng, Andreas Prohl

Motivated by emerging applications from imaging processing, the heat flow of a generalized $p$-harmonic map into spheres is studied for the whole spectrum, $1\leq p<\infty$, in a unified framework. The existence of global weak solutions is established for the flow using the energy method together with a regularization and a penalization technique. In particular, a $BV$-solution concept is introduced and the existence of such a solution is proved for the 1-harmonic map heat flow. The main idea used to develop such a theory is to exploit the properties of measures of the forms $\cA\cdot\nab\bv$ and $\cA\wedge\nab\bv$; which pair a divergence-$L^1$, or a divergence-measure, tensor field $\cA$, and a $BV$-vector field $\bv$. Based on these analytical results, a practical fully discrete finite element method is then proposed for approximating weak solutions of the $p$-harmonic map heat flow, and the convergence of the proposed numerical method is also established.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

Fourth order curvature driven interface evolution equations frequently appear in the natural sciences. Often axisymmetric geometries are of interest, and in this situation numerical computations are much more efficient. We will introduce and analyze several new finite element schemes for fourth order geometric evolution equations in an axisymmetric setting, and for selected schemes we will show existence, uniqueness and stability results. The presented schemes have very good mesh and stability properties, as will be demonstrated by several numerical examples.

John W. Barrett, Harald Garcke, Robert Nürnberg

We introduce variational approximations for curve evolutions in two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds that are conformally flat, i.e.\ conformally equivalent to the Euclidean space. Examples include the hyperbolic plane, the hyperbolic disk, the elliptic plane as well as any conformal parameterization of a two-dimensional surface in ${\mathbb R}^d$, $d\geq 3$. In these spaces we introduce stable numerical schemes for curvature flow and curve diffusion, and we also formulate a scheme for elastic flow. Variants of the schemes can also be applied to geometric evolution equations for axisymmetric hypersurfaces in ${\mathbb R}^d$. Some of the schemes have very good properties with respect to the distribution of mesh points, which is demonstrated with the help of several numerical computations.

John W. Barrett, Sebastien Boyaval

Two finite element approximations of the Oldroyd-B model for dilute polymeric fluids are considered, in bounded 2- and 3-dimensional domains, under no flow boundary conditions. The pressure and the symmetric conformation tensor are aproximated by either (a) piecewise constants or (b) continuous piecewise linears, the velocity by (a) continuous piecewise quadratics or a reduced version with linear tangential component on each edge, and (b) by continuous piecewise quadratics or the mini-element. Both schemes (a) and (b) satisfy a free energy bound, which involves the logarithm of the conformation tensor, without any constraint on the time step for the backward Euler type time discretization. This extends the results of [Boyaval et al. M2AN 43 (2009) 523--561], where a piecewise constant approximation of the conformation tensor was necessary to treat the advection term in the stress equation, and a restriction on the time step, based on the initial data, was required to ensure that the approximation to the conformation tensor remained positive definite. Furthermore, for (b) in the presence of an additional dissipative term in the stress equation and a cut-off on the conformation tensor on certain terms like in [Barrett and Süli, M3AS 18 (2008) 935--971] for the FENE dumbbell model, we show (subsequence) convergence towards global-in-time weak solutions (when d=2, cut-offs can be replaced with a time step restriction dependent on the spatial discretization parameter). Hence, we prove existence of global-in-time weak solutions to these regularized models.