Unfitted Superposition Refinement for Moving Interfaces

  • Schmäke, Jan Niklas (Hochschule Düsseldorf)
  • Ruess, Martin (Hochschule Düsseldorf)

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Past research has demonstrated that immersed boundary approaches, such as the Finite Cell Method, provide an attractive framework for the efficient analysis of solid structures undergoing mechanical damage and failure [1, 2]. However, the presence of small-scale, evolving features that naturally arise in such simulations often necessitates frequent mesh refinement and subsequent de-refinement when using conventional methods, resulting in a considerable computational burden. To address this challenge, this presentation extends the Finite Cell Method with a novel unfitted multi-level refinement approach for axis-aligned meshes [3]. This refinement strategy enables the superposition of multiple independent meshes that are neither geometrically nor topologically connected, thereby providing a high degree of flexibility. Global C^0 continuity is achieved through the imposition of homogeneous boundary conditions on the internal boundaries of the overlay meshes. The coupling terms between the individual meshes are evaluated on overlapping elements using conventional Gaussian quadrature rules on their respective intersections. Moreover, the overlay meshes can be scaled and translated during transient simulations, making the approach particularly well suited for tracking evolving and moving features while maintaining low computational costs. This presentation introduces the Finite Cell Method extended with unfitted multi-level refinements and applies it to a set of problems from damage mechanics. Well-established benchmark problems are used to demonstrate the accuracy of the approach, together with selected research- and industry-relevant examples that illustrate its broader applicability. Finally, the advantages and limitations of the proposed method are discussed to pave the way for more accurate and efficient simulations in complex structural analysis. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - 515687474. [1] Nils Zander, Martin Ruess, Tino Bog, Stefan Kollmannsberger, and Ernst Rank. Multi-level hp-adaptivity for cohesive fracture modeling. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 109(13):1723–1755, 2017. [2] Jan Niklas Schmäke, Oliver Wege, and Martin Ruess. Error-controlled multi-level hp finite cells in the realm of elastoplastic analysis. 16th World Congress on Computational Mechanics (WCCM), 2024. [3] Jan Niklas Schmäke and Martin Ruess. Unfitted overlay hp-refinements on axis-aligned finite element meshes. 11th GACM Colloquium on Computational Mechanics, 2025.