U.S.-Germany Cooperative Research: Least-Square Finite Element Methods for Nonlinear Elasticity

Purdue Research Foundation, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

9910010 Cai This award supports Zhiqiang Cai, a post-doctoral and a graduate student from Purdue University in a collaboration with Gerhard Starke of the Department of Mathematics at the U. of Essen, Germany. The project will focus on developing a new, accurate, robust, and efficient least-squares finite element method to solve nonlinear elasticity problems. Such techniques would be useful in applications such as buckling of plates, large deformations of hyperelastic materials, and Navier-Stokes problems. The collaboration combines unique expertise on both sides, with the U.S. side among the leaders in the analysis of least-squares finite element methods for partial differential equations and the German side experienced in numerical techniques. Interest in this area of investigation is currently very strong in the research community, and a new way to solve the difficult problems being attacked in this research would be a boon to many disparate fields.