Efficient and Accurate Stress Recovery Procedure and

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Efﬁcient and Accurate Stress Recovery Procedure and A-Posteriori Error

Estimator for the Stable Generalized/Extended Finite Element Method
Article in International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering · October 2018

DOI: 10.1002/nme.6091
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[October 03, 2018]
Efficient and Accurate Stress Recovery Procedure and A-Posteriori

Error Estimator for the Stable Generalized/Extended Finite Element
Method
R.M. Lins‡,1, S.P.B. Proença*and C.A. Duarte†
‡Aeronautics Technological Institute (ITA)
Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50, 12228-900, São José dos Campos-SP, Brazil
*Department of Structural Engineering (SET)
São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC)
University of São Paulo (USP)
Avenida Trabalhador Sãocarlense, 400, 13566-590, São Carlos-SP, Brazil
†Department of Civil and Environmental Engr., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
Newmark Laboratory, 205 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
SUMMARY
This paper presents a new stress recovery technique for the Generalized/eXtended Finite Element Method
(G/XFEM) and for the Stable Generalized FEM (SGFEM). The recovery procedure is based on a locally
weighted L² projection of raw stresses over element patches—the set of elements sharing a node. Such projection
leads to a block-diagonal system of equations for the recovered stresses. The recovery procedure can be used
with GFEM and SGFEM approximations based on any choice of elements and enrichment functions. Here the
focus is on low-order 2D approximations for linear elastic fracture problems. A procedure for computing
recovered stresses at re-entrant corners of any internal angle is also presented. The proposed stress recovery
technique is used to define a Zienkiewicz-Zhu (ZZ) a-posteriori error estimator for the G/XFEM and the
SGFEM. The accuracy, computational cost, and convergence rate of recovered stresses together with the quality
of the ZZ estimator, including its effectivity index, are demonstrated in problems with smooth and singular
solutions.
KEY WORDS: Stress recovery; Smoothing; Error Estimation; Generalized FEM; Extended FEM
1. Introduction
It is well known that standard Finite Element (FE) approximations of stress fields converge slower than
displacement approximations and can exhibit discontinuities at element boundaries. This has motivated since the
early days of the FE method the development of stress smoothing or recovery methods able to provide more
accurate and physically consistent stress fields. Nodal averaging and global L² projection of FE stress are among
the earliest methods used for stress smoothing and recovery in the FEM [1]. Global projections are
computationally expensive and non-trivial to implement [2]. More computationally efficient methods include the
Super-convergent Patch Recovery (SPR) method of Zienkiewicz and Zhu [3, 4], the Recovery by Equilibrium in
Patched (REP) method by Boroomand and Zienkiewicz [5, 6], the Nodal-Point Force (NPF) method by Payen
and Bathe [7, 8], and more recently the Stress Improvement Procedure (SIP) method by Payen and Bathe [9] and
by Sharma et al. [2]. Further details on these methods can be found in Sharma et al. [2].
Stress recovery methods for the Generalized/eXtended Finite Element Method (G/XFEM) [10-13] and for the
Stable Generalized FEM (SGFEM) [14, 15] are far less mature than for the FEM. The approximation spaces of
these methods in general involve non-polynomial functions (cf. Section 3), and this must be taken into account
by stress recovery techniques for these methods. One example where this is the case is the recovery procedure
for the Corrected XFEM [16, 17] presented in Prange et al. [18]. This procedure is based on a global L²
projection of raw stresses which accounts for the presence of stress singularities and discontinuities associated
with the presence of cracks. Other stress recovery techniques for the G/XFEM are discussed later in the context
1
Correspondence to: R. M. Lins, Aeronautics Technological Institute (ITA), Praça Marechal Eduardo Gomes, 50, 12228-900, São José dos
Campos-SP, Brazil; e-mail: mlins@ita.br
LINS, PROENÇA AND DUARTE
of a-posteriori error estimates for the method.

This paper presents a new stress recovery technique for the G/XFEM and for the SGFEM. The recovery
procedure is based on a locally weighted L² projection of raw stresses and does not rely on the existence of
super-convergent points like in the SPR. The focus of the paper is on problems with singularities at crack tips
and re-entrant corners as described in Section 2. However, the proposed method can also be applied to problems
with smooth solutions, as shown in the numerical example presented in Section 6.1. In the proposed stress
recovery method for the G/XFEM and SGFEM, the global L² projection adopted by Prange et al. [18] is replaced
by a variationally consistent block-diagonal projection operator proposed in Schweitzer [19]. This operator was
developed for the solution of wave propagation problems using the Particle-Partition of Unity Method [20] and
explicit time integration algorithms. It leads, as shown in Section 4, to weighted L² projections at element
patches—the set of elements sharing a node—which is significantly more computationally efficient that a global
L² projection as shown in Section 6. The impact on the accuracy of recovered stresses of using a block-diagonal
instead of a global L² projection operator is numerically analyzed in Section 6.
Stress recovery methods are often developed for and in conjunction with the Zienkiewicz-Zhu a-posteriori
error estimator [21]. This is also the case in this paper. The proposed stress recovery technique is used in Section
5 to define a Zienkiewicz-Zhu a-posteriori error estimator for the G/XFEM and SGFEM. In this class of
estimator, the exact stress field is replaced by a recovered stress field and used in the definition of an estimator of
the exact error of the approximate solution in the energy norm. Excellent references with detailed mathematical
and computational analysis of a-posteriori error estimator for the FEM are, for example, the works of Ainsworth
and Oden [22] and Babuska et al. [23]. This latter work recommends the ZZ estimator for practical FEM
computations. Their recommendation is based on the fact that this estimator performs well in a wide variety of
problems, it is cheap and easy to program. They however point out that the ZZ estimator is neither an upper nor a
lower estimator.
The ZZ estimator, while originally developed for the FEM, has been adapted for the G/XFEM by several
authors. For instance, Bordas et al. [24] propose an error estimator in strain based on the difference between an
enhanced strain field, computed by extended moving least squares (XMLS), and the XFEM strain field. More
recently, in Jin et al. [25] the same error estimator was applied focusing on adaptive strategies in the framework
of 3D linear elastic crack propagation using the XFEM. Another important contribution to recovery-based error
estimators in the G/XFEM framework is the equilibrated recovered technique called SPRXFEM proposed by
Ródenas et al. [26]. Essentially, in this technique the recovered stress field is split into smooth and singular parts.
The smooth field is defined applying the super-convergent patch recovery (SPR) [3, 4]. The singular field, in
turn, is defined by means of branch function enrichments for fracture mechanics problems. The same SPRXFEM is
used in a goal-oriented error estimation technique [27], where the stress intensity factor is the quantity of
interest. A ZZ estimator for the SGFEM is presented in Lins et al. [28]. The recovered stress field is provided by
the global L2 projection method of Prange et al. [18] adapted for the SGFEM.
Following this introduction, the governing equations of the 2D elasticity problems considered in this paper
are summarized in Section 2. A brief review of the G/XFEM and SGFEM is presented in Section 3. The
proposed stress recovery approach and the ZZ estimator based on it are presented in sections 4 and 5,
respectively. The accuracy and convergence rate of recovered stresses together with the quality of the ZZ
estimator, including its effectivity index, are studied in Section 6. The main conclusions and some possible
extensions of this work are presented in Section 7.
2. Model Problem Definition
Consider a linear elastic solid containing a crack, with a boundary  . This solid belongs to two-dimensional
space so that        2 (see Figure 1). The goal is to find a displacement field u which fulfills the
following conditions:
 Equilibrium:
 σ  0 (1)
 Constitutive relations:
σ  :ε (2)
2
EFFICIENT AND ACCURATE STRESS RECOVERY PROCEDURE AND A-POSTERIORI ERROR ESTIMATOR FOR THE SGFEM
 Strain-displacement relations:
ε  s u (3)
 Boundary conditions:
σ  n  t on  N
σ  n  0 on C (4)
u  0 on  D
where  is Hooke’s tensor, σ denotes the Cauchy stress tensor and ε stands for the small strain tensor.  N and
 D denote the Neumann and Dirichlet boundaries and C stands for the crack boundary with
 C   N   D   .  u is the symmetric gradient of the displacements, n stands for the outward unit normal
s
vector to  and t are prescribed tractions. The Dirichlet boundary condition in (4) and the body forces are
assumed to be homogeneous for the sake of simplicity.
N
C

D
t
Fig. 1 Linear elastic solid containing a re-entrant edge
Equations (1-4) provide the strong form of governing equations and boundary conditions. On the other hand,
the weak form of the problem above is given by the Principle of Virtual Work, which reads: Find u  V such
that for  v  V
B  u, v  F  v (5)
where
B  u, v    σ  u  : ε  v  d 

F v  t
T
 vd 
N
and V is the standard space of trial and test functions for the elasticity problem given by
V  v  H 1    : v  0 on  D  (6)
Numerical methods, such as the GFEM and the SGFEM, are used to find approximate solutions for problems
described by Equation (5). These methods enable the definition of solution spaces that can better approximate
than the standard FEM the singularity of the exact solution at crack tips and displacement discontinuities, as
3
well. When the exact solution is not available, a-posteriori error estimators, including the new one proposed in
this paper, are essential for assessing the accuracy of these solutions and for driving adaptive control of the error.
3. G/XFEM and SGFEM: A Brief Review
In this section, the main features of the formulation of the GFEM/SGFEM are briefly reviewed. More detailed
descriptions can be found in [29, 30, 15, 31].
3.1 The G/XFEM
The G/XFEM is a numerical method based on the partition of unity concept originally introduced in [32, 33].
The main feature of this method is the enlargement of the standard finite element approximation space with an
enrichment space of GFEM shape functions. The GFEM shape functions, ϕαi, are defined locally in a domain ωα
called cloud or patch formed by the set of elements that have a common vertex node. Inside of each cloud, the
shape functions attached to the vertex α are constructed by the product between the Lagrangian shape functions
belonging to the elements in the cloud, φα, and the enrichment functions, Lαi. Therefore,
 i   L i (nosummation on  ) (7)
where α identifies the nodal cloud, i (=1, ..., nl) identifies the enrichment function and nl is the total number of
enrichment functions adopted for each cloud. Figure 2 exemplifies the construction of GFEM shape functions in
a two-dimensional domain.
In two-dimensional analysis, piecewise linear functions provided by triangular elements and bilinear
functions provided by quadrilateral elements are the most explored and are hereby used.
Regarding the enrichment functions Lαi indicated in (7), the main aim of their use is the improvement of the
quality of local approximations. Therefore, any a-priori knowledge about the solution of the problem of interest
can be suitably explored.
 
Li L i
i i
Fig.2 Representation of a GFEM shape function. The enrichment function, Lαi, is the function in the middle. The
picture on the left depicts an oscillatory enrichment and the picture on the right depicts a discontinuous
enrichment. This figure is adapted from Fig. 2 of [34]
Considering that the unity is taken as the first component of the set of enrichment functions, the global
approximation space for the G/XFEM can be split in a conventional FEM part and an enrichment part.
Therefore, restricting only to two-dimensional problems, the G/XFEM approximation for each component of the
displacement field is given by
n n
 nl 
uˆ    u      Li bi  (8)
 1  1  i 2 
n n
 nl 
vˆ    v      Li ci  (9)
 1  1  i 2 
where n is the number of nodal clouds, uα and vα are parameters associated with usual degrees of freedom of
finite elements, bαi and cαi are additional nodal parameters introduced by enrichment.
4
In equations (8) and (9) a convenient splitting of the GFEM approximation space is explored. Consequently,
if SFEM is the standard finite element approximation space and SENR is the enrichment space, the GFEM
approximation space, SGFEM, can be defined as
SGFEM  S FEM  S ENR (10)
where
 n

S FEM   :     a 
  1 
(11)
 n
 nl 
S ENR   :       L i a i  
  1  i2 
Unfortunately, the use of the enrichment functions may lead to some numerical difficulties, since in principle
any function can be adopted as enrichment. Among these difficulties one can mention the presence of blending
elements (elements presenting nodes with different types of enrichments) and the ill-conditioning of the stiffness
matrix. Blending elements may affect the numerical accuracy locally, hence reducing the convergence rates,
whereas ill-conditioning may lead to either numerical solutions polluted by round-off errors or to convergence
issues of iterative solvers. The SGFEM described in the next section was conceived to address the ill-
conditioning issue of the GFEM while preserving its convergence rate.
3.2 The SGFEM
The basic difference between the GFEM and the SGFEM from a formulation point of view, consists of a
modification of the enrichment functions through a finite element interpolant of the enrichment. This
modification makes the modified enrichment function to be zero at all nodes belonging to the cloud ωα
associated with the enrichment. Thus, a SGFEM enrichment function at a cloud ωα is computed from the
difference between the original enrichment function, Lαi, and its finite element interpolant function, I . Hence,
i  L i  I  L i 
Lmod 
(12)
The interpolant function can be written as:
I  x, y     j  x, y  L i  x j , y j 
ne

(13)
j 1
where (xj, yj) are the coordinates of node j of the element in question and ne refers to the number of element
nodes.
An identical procedure for constructing the GFEM shape functions is then used to define the SGFEM shape
functions,  mi od , i.e.,
mod
i    Lmod
i
(14)
An example of the construction of an enrichment function and of a shape function used in the SGFEM is
illustrated in Figure 3.

 Li
Lmod
Li I   Li  i
i mod
mod i
Li
5
Fig. 3 Construction of an enrichment function and a shape function used in SGFEM. The center illustration
features the original enrichment function, Lαi, at the top, the piecewise linear finite element interpolant of which
is in the middle, I  L i  , and the modified SGFEM enrichment function, Lmod i
, is shown at the bottom. This
figure is adapted from Fig. 2 of [31]
It is convenient to represent the SGFEM approximation space SSGFEM as follows:

S SGFEM  S FEM  S ENR
mod
(15)
with:
 n
 nl 
mod
S ENR   :       Lmod
i a i  
(16)
  1  i2 
Despite of its consistent mathematical basis and of the excellent results presented in [31, 35], it is important
to mention that the SGFEM can achieve its full potential only when certain conditions are satisfied. For example,
the conditioning of the SGFEM is similar to the FEM only when the linear independence among the enriched
shape functions is guaranteed. The fulfillment of such feature led to a further modification in the enrichment
function, as proposed in [36] and recently explored in [37].
4. Stress Recovery for Problems with Cracks and Re-Entrant Corners
In the first part of this section the stress recovery method of Prange et al. [18] is generalized for the case of re-
entrant corners like the one shown in Figure 4. Fracture problems correspond to the special case of α = 2π, with α
defined in Figure 4. In the second part of this section, a stress recovery procedure for the G/XFEM and for the
SGFEM based on the solution of a block-diagonal system of equations is presented.
4.1. A Generalization of Prange et al. [18] Stress Recovery Method

Prange et al. [18] proposed an improvement to the stress recovery method adopted in the 1987 by ZZ
estimator [21]. It uses special enrichment functions to represented singular and discontinuous recovered stress
fields in the vicinity of cracks and their tip. This recovery method is used in [18] to define a ZZ estimator for the
Corrected XFEM [16, 17]. This ZZ estimator was slightly modified and applied to the SGFEM in Lins et al.
[28].
The stress recovery procedure proposed in [18] is based on a global L2 projection of raw stresses computed
from G/XFEM approximations of fracture problems. The components of the recovered stress field σ* considering
only branch functions as enrichment are written as [18]
 xx*  a1 ,0   a1 , n g1n  r ,  

  nn
  2
 
σ*   *yy    a2 ,0     a2 , n gn2  r ,   (17)
 *   1 a3   I n 1 a3 g 3  r ,  b
h
 xy     ,0 
 
 ,n n

std. FEM approx. enriched GFEM approx.
where nn is the number of nodes in the mesh, I hb is the list of nodes enriched with branch functions. The
enrichment functions g nd , with d = 1, 2, 3, and n = 1, 2, adopted in [18] are based on the asymptotic expansion
of the mode I and II of the elasticity solution in the neighborhood of a crack. Here, the above expression is
generalized and adopts the mode I and II asymptotic expansion of the stress field near a re-entrant corner like
the one shown in Figure 4. They are given by
g11  r ,   1r  1  2  Q1  1  1  cos  1  1   1  1 cos  1  3 

1
(18)
g 12  r ,   2 r 
2 1
 2  Q2  2  1  sin  2  1   2  1 sin  2  3  (19)
6
g12  r ,    1r  1  2  Q1  1  1  cos  1  1    1  1 cos  1  3  

1
(20)
g 22  r ,     2 r  2 1
  2  Q 2   2  1   sin   2  1      2  1  sin   2  3    (21)
g 13  r ,    1 r  1 1
  1  1  sin  1  3    Q1  1  1  sin  1  1    (22)
g 23  r ,    2 r  2 1
 2  1 cos  2  3   Q2  2  1 cos  2  1   (23)
where r and θ are the polar coordinates in the system at the re-entrant corner as shown in Fig. 4. Parameters λ1,
Q1, λ2 and Q2 depend on the angle α defined in Fig. 4. Their derivation can be found in [38]. In the case of a
crack, α = 2π, λ1 = λ2= 1/2, Q1 = 1/3 and Q2 = -1.0. In the case of the L-shaped domain shown in Figure 20, α =
3π/2, λ1 = 0.544483737, Q1 = 0.543075579, λ2 = 0.90852919 and Q2 = -0.218923236 [38].
y
r P
α/2
θ
x
α/2
Fig. 4 Re-entrant edge with coordinate system
d
The unknown coefficients a , n , β = 1,…, nn, n = 0, 1, 2, and d = 1, 2, 3 are found by solving L2 projection
problems as described next. It is noted that different enrichment functions are used to represent each component
of the stress tensor. This is in contrast with the procedure proposed in [21] for the recovery of stress. This, as
d
shown later, has implications on the computation of the unknown coefficients a , n .
The following notation is introduced in order to write (17) in a more compact and generic expression
 1*   xx* 
   
g 0d  1, d  1, 2, 3,  2*    *yy  (24)
 *  * 
 3   xy 
Similarly, the following GFEM shape functions are defined
d , n    g nd (25)
Using these definitions, Equation (17) can be written as
1*  nen   
 a1 , n g1n  r ,   a1 , n1 , n 
nn nen   
  nn  2 2   2 2 
σ*   2*      a , n gn  r ,      a , n , n  (26)
 *   1 n 0 a3 g 3  r ,    1 n  0 a3  3 
 3   ,n n    ,n  ,n 
where nen(β) is the number of enrichment functions at node with index β. If nen(β) = 0, the node has no
enrichment–it has only the FEM shape function φβ. In this paper, nen(β) is either zero or two. In the latter case
the node has three shape functions for each stress component.
7
From the above, instead of using (17) the approximation of stress component  d* can now be given by
nn nen   
 d*    a d
 d
,n  ,n (27)
 1 n  0
The unknown coefficients in (26) can be computed from the minimization of the following functional [21]:
    σ*  σˆ    σ*  σˆ  d  :  σ*  σˆ , σ*  σˆ  (28)
L2   

where σ̂ is the (raw) stress field computed directly from the GFEM or SGFEM solution and Ω is the analysis
domain. The existence of super-convergent points for this stress field is not assumed here. The minimization of
Π with respect to the unknown coefficients leads to the following orthogonality conditions for each stress
component  d* ,d = 1, 2, 3,
 *
d  ˆ d , d, m 
L2   
 0   1, , nn, m  0, , nen     no summation over d  (29)
Therefore
 *
d , d, m 
L2   
 ˆ d , d, m 
L2   
  1, , nn, m  0, , nen    (30)
Using (27) and the above lead to the following linear system of equations for the unknown coefficients of
each stress component  d* , d = 1, 2, 3,
 d
 ,n , d, m 
L2   
ad , n  ˆ d , d, m 
L2   
 ,   1, , nn, m, n  0, , nen    (31)
The above system of equations can be written as
Ad , n  , m  ad , n  fd , m   ,   1,, nn, m, n  0,, nen    (32)
where
Ad , n  , m  d, n , d, m    d, nd, m d     g nd  g md d    g nd ,  g md  (33)

L2    L2   
 
and
f d , m    ˆ d d, m d    ˆ d  g md d   ˆ d ,  g md  (34)

L2   
 
Adopting matrix format, (32) can be written as

Ad ad  f d (35)
where
A d   Ad , n  , m   (36)
a d  ad , n  (37)
f d   fd, m  (38)
The above approach based on a global L2 projection is hereafter denoted as global recovery. The systems of
equations in (35) are solved for each set of unknowns–one for each stress component  d* , d = 1, 2, 3. These
systems, in case of a crack and ˆ d computed with the Corrected XFEM, are the same as in Prange et al. [18]. In
8
the case of a crack and ˆ d computed with the SGFEM, the systems are the same as in Lins et al. [28]. It is noted
that in a 3-D elasticity problem, six systems of equations must be solved for the recovered stress tensor σ* –one
for each stress component. The computational cost is therefore high.
If no node is enriched with branch functions, which is the case in the standard FEM, nen(β) = 0,β = 1,…, nn.
The left hand side of the system of equations (32) becomes independent of the stress components since g 0d  1 , d
= 1, 2, 3, i.e.,
Ad ,0 ,0    g0d  g0d d      d  (39)

 
This is analogous to the consistent mass matrix of a scalar-valued dynamical problem like the wave equation
problem with a constant mass density. This matrix needs to be factorized only once and the system of equations
solved for each right-hand side vector entry given by:
f d ,0   ˆ d  g 0d d    ˆ d  d  (40)

 
4.2 A Recovery Technique Based on a Block-Diagonal Matrix

This section presents a computationally efficient and robust strategy for computing the recovered stress
tensor σ* . The idea is to exploit the analogy between matrix Ad defined in (36), and the consistent mass matrix in
dynamics problems. Schweitzer [19] presents a mathematically consistent approach for the derivation of a
lumped mass matrix that can be used with any partition of unity method, and in particular with the GFEM and
SGFEM. The approach is based on a re-interpretation of f d vector entries (34) as an L² inner product between
ˆ d and the enrichment function g md , weighted by the partition of unity function φα. Therefore,
f d , m   ˆ d ,  g md  d  : ˆ d , g md 


  ˆ d  g md d    ˆ  g
d
d
m (41)
L2    L2  
  
In (41) ωα refers to the patch of elements connected to vertex node α. This same locally-weighted inner product
can be used to define a variationally consistent lumped mass matrix [19]
 0 if   
 d   A d  d 
A , where A   (42)
 g n , g m  L2   if   
   , n  , m     , n  , m  d d 
and
g , g md 

 g g md  d 
d d
n n (43)
L2  

Matrix Ãd is symmetric, positive-definite, and block diagonal. For the case of stress tensor σ* expressed as in
(17), the dimension of each blocks is either 3x3 or 1x1, depending whether the nodes have branch function
enrichments or not. Therefore, the factorization of Ãd requires significantly less computational effort than in the
case of matrix Ad. This is demonstrated in the numerical experiments presented in Section 6. Furthermore, the
parallelization of the factorization of Ãd is straightforward. It is also noted that the numerical integration of each
block of Ãd involves only the patch of elements in ωα. In this sense, the proposed recovery method is related to
FEM stress recovery methods based on element patches like those discussed in Section 1.
The above variational lumping is applicable to arbitrary local approximation spaces and any non-negative
partition of unity like those provided by linear finite elements of any dimension. Therefore, in principle, it cannot
be used, for example, with a quadratic Lagrangian partition of unity. However, it is possible to overcome this
limitation by solving the boundary value problem using a quadratic Lagrangian FEM basis and projecting the
FEM raw stresses on a quadratic Generalized FEM space defined using a linear partition of unity and linear
polynomial enrichment functions. The same applies to higher order Lagrangian (or not) basis.
Using Ãd and fd, the coefficients of the recovered stress tensor (17) are computed by solving the following
9
system of equations for each stress component  d* , d = 1, 2, 3,

 d a d  f d
A (44)
d
where vector ã has the coefficients used in (27) as before. This new stress recovery approach based on a locally
weighted L2 projection is hereafter denoted as Block-Diagonal (BD) recovery.
It is noted that if a node γ in a FEM mesh has no branch function enrichment, the sub-matrix associated with
that node has a single entry
Ad ,0  ,0    g 0d , g 0d  2

L   
   d 

(45)
Therefore, if no node is enriched (a FEM discretization), matrix Ãd degenerates in the diagonal matrix
 0 if   
 
A  ,0  ,0     d  if   
d
(46)



Furthermore, using the partition of unity property of the FEM shape functions [19],
 nn
 nn

  d     d     
 
    d        d 
 1  1 
(47)

This shows that the diagonal entry in row α of matrix Ãd is given by the sum of the entries in row α of the
consistent mass matrix (39). Thus, the classical approach of lumping a mass matrix in the FEM is a special case
of the variationally consistent lumping approach presented in [19].
As already mentioned, both matrices Ad and Ãd can be computed separately for each stress component  d* , d
= 1, 2, 3. However, for convenience of implementation, in the numerical experiments presented in Section 6,
they were combined in the matrices A and Ã.
5. A Zienkiweicz-Zhu A-Posteriori Error Estimator
This section presents a Zienkiewicz-Zhu a-posteriori error estimator for the G/XFEM and SGFEM based on the
BD stress recovery technique proposed in the previous section.
For elasticity problems where the exact stress field σ is known, the energy norm of the exact error can be
computed as follows
1
 2
    σ  σˆ  D1  σ  σˆ  d e 
T
eexa e
(48)
e 
where Ωe is the element domain, σ̂ is the approximate stress field and D is the constitutive matrix which depends
on plane state assumed. The error measure given in (48) can be interpreted as an L2 norm of the error of stress
field σ̂ .
When the analytical solution is not available, one possibility is to estimate the error using the recovered stress
field σ* , leading to the so-called Zienkiewicz-Zhu error estimator [21]. This field replaces the exact one in
definition of the error. Thus, the energy norm of the estimated error (error estimator) can be written as:
1
 2
    σ*  σˆ  D1  σ*  σˆ  d e 
T
eest e
(49)
e 
Hereafter ZZ error estimator implies evaluating (49) using stresses provided by the global L2 recovery, whereas
ZZ-BD error estimator implies evaluating (49) using stresses provided by the proposed BD recovery.
10
In order to compare the global and BD recovery, it is interesting to investigate the error of the recovered
stress field itself. The energy norm of the error in this field is given by:
1
 2
    σ  σ*  D1  σ  σ*  d e 
T
erec e
(50)
e 
Another form of assessing the accuracy of the recovered stresses and, by consequence, the estimated error is
through the effectivity index Θ. This classical measure is defined by the ratio between equations (49) and (48).
Hence,
eest e
 e  (51)
eexa e
An accurate error estimator must present effectivity indexes close to unity.

All four equations above (48-51) are defined for an elementary domain Ωe. However, global measures can be
computed from contributions of each element of the mesh using the following equations:
0.5
 m 
   eexa
2
Exact error: eexa  e , K  (52)
 K 1 
0.5
 m 
   eest
2
Estimated error: eest  e , K  (53)
 K 1 
0.5
 m 
   erec
2
Error of the recovered stresses: erec  e , K  (54)
 K 1 
eest
Effectivity index:  
(55)
eexa 
where the index K denotes the element and m is the total number of elements.
6. Numerical Studies and Discussion
In this section, the accuracy and convergence rate of recovered stresses computed using a global and the locally
weighted L² projection presented in Section 4 are compared using three 2D benchmark problems. These
problems are also used to study the computational efficiency and the accuracy of ZZ estimators based on these
stress recovery methods. The first problem is a classical cantilever beam problem which has a smooth solution.
No enrichment is adopted for this problem. Thus, it is solved with the standard FEM. The main objective is to
demonstrate the performance of the proposed ZZ-BD estimator when the projection matrix Ã is diagonal. Two
problems with a singularity in the stress field are then solved with the G/XFEM and the SGFEM using only
branch function enrichments. All the numerical results evaluated in this section were computed using the
GFEM/SGFEM dedicated object-oriented programming toolkit named SCIEnCE, described in [39].
6.1 Cantilever beam
The main geometric features of the beam are depicted in Figure 5. One observes that for the sake of comparison
this example is based on the similar cantilever originally analyzed in [21]. The parabolic distributed loading
prescribed on the left free boundary is defined by q = 1.5-6y². Neumann boundary conditions based on the exact
solution are imposed through a self-equilibrated system of forces. The Young’s modulus is taken as 100 and a
Poisson’s ratio value of 0.30 is adopted. In addition, plane stress conditions are assumed. The exact solution for
the stress components of this problem is indicated in the relations below:
11
3Fxy
 xx 
2b 3
 yy 0 (56)
3F 2
 xy 
4b 3
b  y 2 
b
where b corresponds to half of the height beam and F 
b
 q  y  dy . It is noted that the exact solution is smooth
in the entire analysis domain.
y
1 x
q q p
10
Fig. 5 Cantilever beam and prescribed boundary conditions
In order to verify the rates of convergence of quantities of interest, six meshes composed of bilinear
quadrilateral elements are used. These meshes present the following grid sizes: 4x10, 8x20, 16x40, 32x80,
64x160 and 128x320. As mentioned before, in this first example, only the FEM is used to compute the
approximate stress field.
6.1.1 Accuracy of recovered stresses
The exact as well as the FEM and recovered von Mises stress calculated by the BD recovery are depicted in
Figure 6 for the 8x20 mesh. As can be seen, the recovered stress is far closer to the exact one than the FEM
stress, even for this very coarse mesh. In a more rigorous inspection, some sort of deviation of this precise
behavior can be detected close to the Dirichlet boundary. Nevertheless, this deviation tends to disappear once
mesh refinement is performed.
It is important to note that Fig. 6 does not present the recovered stresses computed by the global recovery, as
they are very close to the results provided by the BD recovery. Therefore, the main difference between the global
and BD recovery is the computational effort involved, as discussed in the next subsection.
(a) Exact stresses
(b) FEM stresses
(c) Recovered stresses by BD recovery
Fig. 6 von Mises stresses of cantilever beam calculated by the FEM and its recovered stresses.
Figure 7 shows the convergence of the energy norm of the global error. Stresses provided by the standard
12
FEM (raw stresses) are used for computing the exact global error, eexa 
. On the other hand, stresses provided
by global and BD recovery (recovered stresses) are employed for the global error of the recovered stresses,
erec  . As expected, both recovery procedures are able of providing recovered stresses more accurate than the
stresses computed by the FEM. Therefore, it is possible to estimate the error using the recovered stress field
provided by the BD recovery, even in the FEM case, where the matrix Ã is diagonal.
Regarding the comparison between the global and BD recovery, still in the same Fig. 7 the curves indicate
that the global recovery is slightly more precise specially when considering coarser meshes. Nevertheless, this
higher precision is weakened as the mesh is refined. Moreover, the convergence rates associated to the BD
recovery are a slightly higher than when compared to the convergence rates of the global recovery, both
approaching the super convergence rate of β = 1.0.
β = 0.46
β = 0.50
β = 0.51
β = 0.51
β = 0.86 β = 0.50
β = 0.87
β = 0.90
β = 0.93 β = 0.87
β = 0.87
β = 0.91 β = 0.83
β = 0.83
β = 0.80
Fig. 7 Convergence of global error of raw stresses, eexa 

, and recovered stresses, erec 
, for the cantilever
beam. The stresses are computed by FEM and by global and BD recovery procedures.
6.1.2 Quality of error estimates
Figure 8 presents a comparison between the global exact and estimated errors. The estimated error, eest 
,
was computed by the ZZ-BD error estimator. It is possible to observe a small difference between the errors only
for the coarser meshes. This difference practically disappears with mesh refinement, leading to identical
convergence rates of 0.50 and error values.
β = 0.46
β = 0.50
β = 0.36 β = 0.51
β = 0.47
β = 0.51
β = 0.50
β = 0.50
β = 0.50
β = 0.50
13
Fig. 8 Convergence of global error eexa 

and estimated error eest 
for the cantilever beam.
Figure 9 presents the effectivity indexes for the ZZ and the ZZ-BD error estimators. Clearly, both estimators
show an appropriate behavior since its effectivity indexes tend to unity when the number of DOFs increases. It is
noteworthy that the indexes for the ZZ-BD estimator are closer to unity than for the ZZ estimator, already from
the first meshes. Despite to be subtle, such difference can be noticed in the plotted curves.
Fig. 9 Effectivity indexes computed using the ZZ and the ZZ-BD error estimators of cantilever beam
6.1.3 Computational performance

Table 1 shows the number of non-zeros entries in the matrices A and Ã used by the global and BD recovery
procedures, respectively. As expected, matrix Ã is significantly sparser than matrix A. Taking the last mesh as an
example, the difference between the number of non-zeros entries is almost nine times. Therefore, the BD
recovery requires much less computational effort than the global one.
Table 1 Number of non-zeros entries in matrices A and Ã associated to the global and BD recovery procedures
for cantilever beam
Nº recovery Number of non-zeros entries in the matrices

Mesh
coefficients A (global) Ã (BD)
(4 x 10) 165 1209 165
(8 x 20) 567 4575 567
(16 x 40) 2091 17787 2091
(32 x 80) 8019 70131 8019
(64 x 160) 31395 278499 31395
(128 x 320) 124227 1109955 124227
6.2 Edge crack panel
In this example a panel with an edge crack subjected to mixed mode loading is analyzed. The panel is depicted in
Figure 10. The first terms of the asymptotic expansions of the exact solution of Mode I and II stress distributions
are given by:
Mode I:
14
1   5 
 xx   3 cos  cos 
4 r 2 2 
1   5 
 yy   5 cos  cos  (57)
4 r 2 2 
1  5 
 xy   sin  sin 
4 r 2 2
Mode II:
1   5 
 xx    7 sin  sin 
4 r 2 2 
1   5 
 yy    sin  sin  (58)
4 r 2 2 
1  5 
 xy   cos  3 cos 
4 r 2 2
y
x 1.0
1.0
Fig. 10 Edge crack panel
Both expressions (57) and (58) once superposed provide the Neumann boundary conditions. The external
loading is self-equilibrated. In addition, plane strain conditions are assumed. Regarding physical parameters, a
Young's modulus equal to unity and a Poisson's ratio value of 0.30 are adopted.
Six uniform and structured meshes composed of bilinear quadrilateral elements are adopted. Such set of
meshes present the following grid sizes: 10x10, 20x20, 40x40, 80x80, 160x160 and 320x320. The 20x20 mesh
with its enriched nodes is depicted in Figure 11.
The main results looked for are related to the accuracy of the recovered stresses used in the ZZ and the ZZ-
BD error estimators compared to the convergence error presented by the approximate stresses obtained with the
GFEM and the SGFEM.
15
Fig. 11 Mesh with grid size 20x20 and enriched nodes highlighted in red. The crack is represented by the blue
line.
For all meshes, the following enrichment strategy is adopted: a set of branch functions are applied to the
nodes belonging to a square region (side size = 0.25) centralized at the crack tip. These same functions are also
employed in the nodes belonging to the crack line segment outside that region. Moreover, the nodes in the lines
immediately above and below the crack line are also enriched. Such strategy leads to the set of enriched nodes
indicated in Fig. 11. The set of branch functions hereby considered was introduced in Oden and Duarte [40]
(these functions are hereafter denoted OD) and can be represented as follows:

LOD  x  r     Q1  1  1  cos 1  1 cos  1  2    , r     Q2  2  1  sin 2  2 sin  2  2   
1 2
 (59)
LOD  y  r    Q    1  sin     sin    2    , r    Q
1
1 1 1 1 1
2
2  2  1  cos 2  2 cos  2  2   
where r and θ are polar coordinates attached to the crack tip, -π<θ< π, κ is a material constant (3-4υ), and υ is the
Poisson ratio. The remaining parameters appearing in (59) are:λ1 = 0.50, Q1 = 1/3, λ2 = 0.50 and Q2 = -1.0 [38].
Figure 12 presents the distribution of shear stresses in the vicinity of the crack tip computed by means of the
several methods hereby considered. Clearly, the approximate stresses provided by the SGFEM are more accurate
than those calculated by the GFEM (Figs.12c and 12d). Regardless to the method chosen, it is remarkable the
improvement of the precision given by the recovered stresses used in the BD recovery. This feature makes
evident the robustness of the proposed recovery procedure.
16
(a) (c) (e)
(b) (d) (f)

Fig. 12 Shear stresses of edge crack panel calculated by the GFEM and by the SGFEM and their respective
recovered stresses. The out of scale values are plotted in white. a Mesh (the shaded region indicates the area
shown in (c-f) b Exact stresses. c GFEM stresses. d SGFEM stresses. e Recovered stresses using the GFEM. f
Recovered stresses using the SGFEM.
Figure 13 presents the convergence of the energy norm of the global error. The raw stresses are computed by
GFEM. Once again, similarly to the previous example, the recovered stresses are more accurate than the
approximate stresses. However, in this case, there is a pronounced difference between the global and BD
recovery procedures. As can be seen, the departure between the curves is progressively more significant as the
mesh is refined, being induced by the different convergence rates. On average, the convergence rate of the error
in recovered stresses increases about 17% when the BD recovery is chosen with respect to the global recovery.
Furthermore, the curves still indicate that, in general, the block diagonal matrix employed in the BD recovery
provides more precise stresses than those obtained using the standard matrix of the global recovery.
β = 0.42
β = 0.53
β = 0.49
β = 0.68 β = 0.50
β = 0.55
β = 0.60 β = 0.51
β = 0.66
β = 0.83 β = 0.59
β = 0.72 β = 0.53
β = 0.68
β = 0.56
17

, for the edge crack
panel. The stresses are computed by GFEM and by global and BD recovery procedures.
Figure 14 is analogous to Fig. 13, but now, instead of the GFEM, the approximate stresses are computed
using the SGFEM. It can be noted that the accuracy of such approximate stresses affects considerably the
relative accuracy of the recovered stresses. For instance, especially for coarser meshes the global recovery
provides better results than the BD recovery as a whole. Nevertheless, the BD recovered stress shows a tendency
to be more accurate than the global as the number of DOFs increases. Such fact is directly related to the gradual
drop in the convergence rates of the global recovery.
β = 0.42
β = 0.53
β = 0.71 β = 0.47
β = 0.84 β = 0.48
β = 0.72 β = 0.48
β = 0.81
β = 0.79 β = 0.65
β = 0.50
β = 0.52
β = 0.37 β = 0.29

, for the edge crack
panel.

The performance of the ZZ-BD error estimator is evaluated from a comparison between the global exact and
estimated errors indicated in Figure 15. As can be seen, the curves associated to exact and estimated errors
essentially match each other considering GFEM solutions. The identical rates of convergence corroborate for this
affirmation. On the other hand, there is a slight departure between the curves considering SGFEM solutions,
however, such departure disappears with mesh refinement. Moreover, the ZZ-BD error estimator succeeds in
identifying the highest accuracy of the SGFEM demonstrating its robustness.
β = 0.42
β = 0.43
β = 0.53
β = 0.53
β = 0.49
β = 0.42 β = 0.49
β = 0.47 β = 0.50
β = 0.56 β = 0.50
β = 0.53 β = 0.47 β = 0.51
β = 0.49 β = 0.51
β = 0.49
β = 0.48 β = 0.48
β = 0.49
18

for the edge crack panel considering
GFEM and SGFEM solutions.
Figures 16 and 17 show the local exact, eexa e

, and estimated, eest e
,errors in a neighborhood enclosing
to the crack tip considering solutions provided by the GFEM and the SGFEM, respectively. For both cases, the
estimated error is computed by the ZZ-BD error estimator. The distributions in Fig. 16 indicate that the exact and
estimated errors are very similar, including the errors of the blending elements. In Fig. 17, once again, the error
distributions are reasonably similar, despite some blending elements present a certain inaccuracy. Finally, the
higher accuracy of the SGFEM with respect to the GFEM is identified by the relative magnitude order of the
estimated error.
(a) (b)
Fig. 16 Local error distribution in the edge crack panel for 40x40 mesh close to the crack tip considering the
GFEM solution. a Exact error. b Estimated error computed by ZZ-BD error estimator. The white nodes are
enriched by OD branch functions and the blue line indicates the crack line.
(a) (b)
Fig. 17 Local error distribution in the edge crack panel for 40x40 mesh close to the crack tip considering the
SGFEM solution. a Exact error. b Estimated error computed by ZZ-BD error estimator.
Figure 18 compares the quality of the ZZ and ZZ-BD estimators by means of the effectivity indexes. For all
cases, there is convergence to the unity value with mesh refinement, as desired. Moreover, the indexes indicate
19
that, in general, the estimated error by the ZZ-BD is more accurate when using GFEM solutions, whereas the
estimated error by the ZZ is the more precise when using SGFEM solutions.
Fig. 18 Effectivity indexes computed using the ZZ and the ZZ-BD error estimators considering solutions
obtained by the GFEM and the SGFEM of edge crack panel

Table 2 indicates the number of non-zeros entries in matrices A and Ã used by the global and BD recovery
procedures, respectively. These entries are the same for the GFEM and SGFEM because the linear interpolant
function is not considered in the SGFEM when computing those matrices. On average, the number of non-zeros
entries in matrix A is around 8.5 times larger than in case of the block diagonal matrix Ã. Therefore, the matrix
Ã will demand much less floating-point operations for its factorization, as shown in Table 3.
for edge crack panel

Mesh
coefficients Ā (global) Ã (BD)
(10 x 10) 489 6625 856
(20 x 20) 1617 20395 2488
(40 x 40) 6039 76997 8998
(80 x 80) 22869 283597 32389
(160 x 160) 88929 1085447 122332
(320 x 320) 350649 4244537 475073
Table 3 Number of floating-point operations required for the numerical factorization of matrices A and Ã
associated to the global and BD recovery procedures for edge crack panel
Nº recovery Number of floating-point operations

Mesh
coefficients Ā (global) Ã (BD)
(10 x 10) 489 4.040000E+05 1.000000E+03
(20 x 20) 1617 2.117000E+06 2.000000E+03
(40 x 40) 6039 1.813500E+07 8.000000E+03
(80 x 80) 22869 1.651090E+08 2.500000E+04
(160 x 160) 88929 1.222051E+09 8.900000E+04
20
(320 x 320) 350649 1.055302E+10 3.320000E+05

6.2.4 Conditioning
The conditioning of a matrix K can be evaluated by means of the scaled condition number (SCN). A high
SCN reveals ill-conditioning of the matrix. Consequently, loss of numerical precision due to round-off can
appear. The SCN refers to the condition number computed by the ratio between the largest and the smallest non-
zero eigenvalue of a scaled matrix K̂ given by:
ˆ  DKD
K (60)
1 2
where D is a diagonal matrix having its diagonal terms computed as: Dii  K . ii
Figure 19 shows the SCNs of matrices A and Ã used by the global and BD recovery procedures, respectively.
As can be seen, the SCNs are lower in the BD case and presenting a reduced growth rate, which is another
positive aspect of this recovery procedure.
β = 2.02
β = 2.05
β = 2.11
β = 2.20
β = 2.44 β = 1.96
β = 2.03
β = 1.73
β = 1.10
β = 1.29
Fig. 19 Scaled condition number of matrices A and Ã plotted against number of degrees of freedom of edge
crack panel
6.3 L-shaped panel

The L-shaped panel considered in this example is depicted in Figure 20. The analytical solution for the mode I
loading of this problem can be written as [38]:
 xx   r  1  2  Q    1  cos    1      1 cos    3  

 yy   r  1  2  Q    1  cos    1      1 cos    3   (61)
 xy   r    1 sin    3   Q    1 sin    1  
 1
where (r, θ) are the polar coordinates attached to the Cartesian system shown in Fig. 20. The remaining
parameters are: λ = 0.544483737 and Q = 0.543075579.
21
y
x
Fig. 20 L-shaped panel
The analytical solution given in (61) provides the Neumann boundary conditions for the problem. The
external loading is therefore self-equilibrated. The adopted elastic parameters are: Young's modulus = 1.0 and
Poisson's ratio = 0.30. Moreover, plane strain conditions are assumed.
Six uniform and structured meshes composed of bilinear quadrilateral elements are used to assess the
convergence of the error in raw and recovered stresses. These six meshes have the following element sizes: L/8,
L/16, L/32, L/64, L/128 and L/256, where L is the length of the longest domain edge. In particular, the mesh
with element size L/16 is shown in Figure 21. The enriched nodes are also shown in the figure.
For all meshes OD branch functions are applied as enrichment of the displacement components in the nodes
belonging to a square region (side size = 0.25) centralized at the re-entrant corner. The application of this
strategy leads to the enriched nodes shown in Fig. 21.
Considering the OD branch functions (see Eq. (59)) it is necessary to adopt new values for the parameters λ1,
Q1, λ2 and Q2. Due to α = 3π/2 (L-shaped) these values are: λ1 = 0.544483737, Q1 = 0.543075579, λ2 =
0.90852919 and Q2 = -0.218923236 [38]. The same set of parameters is used for the recovered stresses.
Fig. 21 Mesh with element size L/16 and enriched nodes highlighted in red.

Figure 22 shows the von Mises stresses calculated using the different methods hereby investigated in the
vicinity of the re-entrant corner. As can be seen, the approximate stresses provided by the SGFEM are more
accurate than those calculated by the GFEM. These results now considering a L-shaped domain, not yet tested
before, point to the overall efficacy of the SGFEM in problems with singularities. Furthermore, both for the
GFEM and for the SGFEM the recovered stresses, defined using the block diagonal matrix Ã, are clearly
smoother than the raw stresses.
22
(c) (e)
(a)
(b) (d) (f)

Fig. 22 von Mises stresses of L-shaped panel calculated by the GFEM and by the SGFEM and their respective
recovered stresses computed by the BD recovery. The out of scale values are plotted in white. a Mesh (the
shaded region indicates the area shown in (c-f) b Exact stresses. c GFEM stresses. d SGFEM stresses. e
Recovered stresses using the GFEM. f Recovered stresses using the SGFEM.
Figure 23 shows the convergence of the energy norm of the global error. Once again, in general, the
recovered stresses provided by the BD recovery are more accurate than the ones calculated by the global
recovery. However, such better precision is slightly less pronounced compared to the previous example. In
addition, the BD recovery again presents convergence rates higher than the global ones.
β = 0.45
β = 0.47
β = 0.49
β = 0.59 β = 0.51
β = 0.71 β = 0.53
β = 0.56 β = 0.57
β = 0.72
β = 0.60
β = 0.73
β = 0.74
β = 0.74

, for the L-shaped
23
panel. The stresses are computed by GFEM and by global and BD recovery procedures.
Figure 24 is equivalent to Fig. 23, except that now the raw stresses are computed using the SGFEM. It can be
observed that the recovered stresses obtained using the block diagonal matrix Ã are much less accurate than
those calculated using the standard matrix A, specially when the number of DOFs is reduced. On the other hand,
there is a clear tendency that the mesh refinement is able to change this scenario, since the decrease of error to
the BD recovery is more significant.
β = 0.45
β = 0.73
β = 0.47
β = 0.48
β = 0.49
β = 0.50
β = 0.81 β = 0.76
β = 0.75
β = 0.72
β = 0.76
β = 0.64
β = 0.60
β = 0.43
β = 0.33

, for the L-shaped
panel. The stresses are computed by SGFEM and by global and BD recovery procedures.
Figures 25 and 26 compare element by element the accuracy of recovered stresses calculated by the global
recovery and BD recovery close to the re-entrant corner. This comparison is done using the error of the
recovered stresses, erec e
. In Fig 25 the approximate stresses are computed by the GFEM. It is noteworthy the
highest accuracy reached by the BD recovery, mainly in the elements containing the singularity. In Fig. 26 the
approximate stresses are computed by the SGFEM. The BD recovery remains showing better precision in the
elements completely enriched. Nevertheless, the global recovery is considerably advantageous in the blending
elements.
24
(a) (b)
Fig. 25 Local error distribution of L-shaped panel for L/32 mesh close to the re-entrant corner considering the
GFEM solution. a Error of recovered stresses provided by the global recovery. b Error of recovered stresses
provided by the BD recovery. The error is computed using equation (50). The white nodes are enriched by OD
branch functions.
(a) (b)
Fig. 26 Local error distribution of L-shaped panel for L/32 mesh close to the re-entrant corner considering the
SGFEM solution. a Error of recovered stresses provided by the global recovery. b Error of recovered stresses
provided by the BD recovery. The error is computed using equation (50).

Figure 27 compares the global exact and estimated errors. Once again, the accuracy of the ZZ-BD error
estimator is remarkable for GFEM solutions. This accuracy is less accentuated for SGFEM solutions, however,
the ZZ-BD estimator clearly shows that the SGFEM yields more accurate raw stresses than the GFEM.
Therefore, even in this case where the singularity is induced by geometry, the ZZ-BD results confirm its
efficacy.
25
β = 0.45
β = 0.47
β = 0.47
β = 0.48
β = 0.45 β = 0.49
β = 0.49
β = 0.49 β = 0.51
β = 0.50 β = 0.51
β = 0.47 β = 0.53
β = 0.48
β = 0.49 β = 0.52
β = 0.50
β = 0.50
β = 0.50
β = 0.51

for the L-shaped panel considering
GFEM and SGFEM solutions.
Figure 28 presents the effectivity indexes associated to the ZZ and ZZ-BD error estimators. As already
expected, the indexes are directly related to the accuracy of the recovered stresses indicated in Figs.23 and 24.
Thus, in general, the estimated error provided by the ZZ-BD is more accurate for GFEM solutions. Nevertheless,
the estimated error provided by the ZZ estimator is more precise for SGFEM solutions. In order to be more
specific, the mean value of the effectivity index for the ZZ estimator is 0.929 for GFEM solutions and 0.983 for
SGFEM solutions. On the other hand, the mean value of the effectivity index for the ZZ-BD estimator is 1.002
for GFEM solutions and 1.046 for SGFEM solutions.
Fig. 28 Effectivity indexes computed using the ZZ and the ZZ-BD error estimators considering solutions
obtained by the GFEM and the SGFEM of L-shaped panel

Table 4 lists the number of non-zeros entries in matrices A and Ã used by the global and BD recovery
procedures, respectively. Once again, the sparsity of matrix Ã is extremely high. Consequently, the CPU ends up
doing much less floating-point operations (see Table 5). Matrices presenting many zeros demand less memory to
be stored. Therefore, the required time to solve the linear system, responsible to define the recovered stresses, is
significantly reduced. On the other hand, poor sparsity means a great number of non-zeros entries, leading to a
great quantity of floating-point operations. Considering two-dimensional problems such situation is of less
concern. However, in three-dimensional problems often high order matrices appear, then a reduced number of
26
non-zeros entries really matters in terms of computational performance.
for L-shaped panel

Mesh
(L/8) 243 2703 387
(L/16) 801 9183 1179
(L/32) 2889 33807 4059
(L/64) 10953 129711 15003
(L/128) 42633 508143 57627
(L/256) 169395 2054121 230593
Table 5 Number of floating-point operations required for the numerical factorization of matrices A and Ã
associated to the global and BD recovery procedures for L-shaped panel
Nº recovery Number of floating-point operations

Mesh
(L/8) 243 5.300000E+04 3.843030E+02
(L/16) 801 4.620000E+05 1.000000E+03
(L/32) 2889 4.171000E+06 3.000000E+03
(L/64) 10953 3.539300E+07 1.100000E+04
(L/128) 42633 2.721780E+08 4.000000E+04
(L/256) 169395 2.308082E+09 1.630000E+05
6.3.4 Conditioning
Figure 29 aims to demonstrate the evolution of the scaled condition number of matrices A and Ã with mesh
refinement. Once again, the SCNs of matrix A are larger than those ones computed using matrix Ã. In addition,
the growth of the SCN using the BD recovery remains inferior to the global recovery, despite the relative
difference to be lower in this example.
β = 2.20
β = 2.25
β = 2.22
β = 2.44 β = 2.28
β = 2.40 β = 1.74
β = 1.60
β = 1.72
β = 3.13
Fig. 29 Scaled condition number of matrices A and Ã plotted against number of degrees of freedom of L-shaped
panel
27
7. Conclusions and Future Works
This paper focused on a new stress recovery procedure based on locally weighted L² projection, denoted BD
recovery, which can be applied to linear FEM, the GFEM and the SGFEM. The procedure can be used with
GFEM and SGFEM approximations based on any choice of elements and enrichments. Here the focus is on
approximations for 2D linear elastic fracture problems. The recovered stresses provided by this procedure are
used in Section 5 to define an error estimator denoted as ZZ-BD error estimator. The performance of both the
BD recovery and ZZ-BD error estimator are compared to the performance of an L² projection based global
recovery and its ZZ error estimator. A summary of the main findings of this work is listed below.
Accuracy of recovered stresses: Firstly, it is important to mention that the error of stresses provided by the
BD recovery converges at a higher rate than the error of raw stresses. This is evidenced in all numerical
examples presented in Section 6. According to [41] this feature guarantees that the recovered stresses are
asymptotically exact.
Regarding the comparison between the global and BD recovery procedures, it is shown that, in general, the
accuracy of recovered stresses provided by the BD recovery is higher than the ones provided by global recovery
in the GFEM case. On the other hand, in the SGFEM case, the global recovery takes a certain advantage when
using coarse meshes. Nevertheless, this advantage decreases considerably with mesh refinement. However, as an
overall average assessment, the BD recovery presents convergence rates approximately 20% higher than the ones
obtained using the global L² recovery.
Quality of error estimates: In most of the examples, the ZZ-BD error estimator is closer to the exact error
than the ZZ error estimator based on a global L² projection, therefore demonstrating its robustness. In the GFEM
context, this feature is clearer than in the SGFEM, but still quite reasonable results are obtained for the SGFEM.
Moreover, the effectivity indexes reflected the good accuracy of the recovered stresses. In fact, the ZZ-BD
estimator presents effectivity index values close to unity, especially in the case of the GFEM.
Computational performance: With respect to the number of non-zeros entries appearing in projection
matrices A and Ã, the results confirm the remarkable sparsity shown by the matrix Ã of the BD recovery. On
average, this matrix presents around 8 times more zeros than matrix A of the global recovery. Consequently, the
factorization of matrix Ã demands much less floating-point operations than matrix A, which results in strongly
reduced computational effort. The manuscript focuses on the computational cost of a direct solver since it is the
most commonly used in the industry. However, the proposed recovery approached will also benefit iterative
solvers. Given that the block-diagonal matrix has significantly fewer non-zero entries than the global matrix (cf.
Tables 2 and 4), each iteration will be significantly faster using a block-diagonal matrix than the matrix of a
global L2 projection.
Conditioning: In all the examples, the scaled condition number (SCN) provided by the BD recovery is lower
than the one provided by the global recovery. Furthermore, considering mesh refinement the rate of growth of
the SCN of matrix Ã is lower than the rate of growth for matrix A.
Concerning possible future works, it is natural to investigate the behavior of both BD recovery and ZZ-BD
error estimator considering distorted elements and other special enrichments such as Heaviside function. Another
possibility is to compare the performance of the ZZ-BD error estimators with others error estimators such as, for
example, the ZZ-SPR estimator [3, 4].
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The first two authors would like to gratefully acknowledge National Counsel of Technological and Scientific
Development (CNPq) for the financial support for this research project. C.A. Duarte gratefully acknowledges the
partial support from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Efﬁcient and Accurate Stress Recovery Procedure and A-Posteriori Error

Article in International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering · October 2018

Rafael Marques Lins Sergio Persival Proenca

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Carlos Armando Duarte

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Efficient and Accurate Stress Recovery Procedure and A-Posteriori

of a-posteriori error estimates for the method.

2. Model Problem Definition

3. G/XFEM and SGFEM: A Brief Review

The interpolant function can be written as:

It is convenient to represent the SGFEM approximation space SSGFEM as follows:

4. Stress Recovery for Problems with Cracks and Re-Entrant Corners

4.1. A Generalization of Prange et al. [18] Stress Recovery Method

 xx*  a1 ,0   a1 , n g1n  r ,  

g11  r ,   1r  1  2  Q1  1  1  cos  1  1   1  1 cos  1  3 

g12  r ,    1r  1  2  Q1  1  1  cos  1  1    1  1 cos  1  3  

Fig. 4 Re-entrant edge with coordinate system

Using these definitions, Equation (17) can be written as

The above system of equations can be written as

Ad , n  , m  ad , n  fd , m   ,   1,, nn, m, n  0,, nen    (32)

Ad , n  , m  d, n , d, m    d, nd, m d     g nd  g md d    g nd ,  g md  (33)

f d , m    ˆ d d, m d    ˆ d  g md d   ˆ d ,  g md  (34)

Adopting matrix format, (32) can be written as

A d   Ad , n  , m   (36)

Ad ,0 ,0    g0d  g0d d      d  (39)

f d ,0   ˆ d  g 0d d    ˆ d  d  (40)

4.2 A Recovery Technique Based on a Block-Diagonal Matrix

f d , m   ˆ d ,  g md  d  : ˆ d , g md 

system of equations for each stress component  d* , d = 1, 2, 3,

5. A Zienkiweicz-Zhu A-Posteriori Error Estimator

An accurate error estimator must present effectivity indexes close to unity.

6. Numerical Studies and Discussion

Fig. 5 Cantilever beam and prescribed boundary conditions

(a) Exact stresses

(b) FEM stresses

(c) Recovered stresses by BD recovery

Fig. 7 Convergence of global error of raw stresses, eexa 

6.1.2 Quality of error estimates

Fig. 8 Convergence of global error eexa 

6.1.3 Computational performance

Nº recovery Number of non-zeros entries in the matrices

Fig. 10 Edge crack panel

(a) (c) (e)

(b) (d) (f)

Fig. 13 Convergence of global error of raw stresses, eexa 

Fig. 14 Convergence of global error of raw stresses, eexa 

6.2.2 Quality of error estimates

Fig. 15 Convergence of global error eexa 

Figures 16 and 17 show the local exact, eexa e

6.2.3 Computational performance

Nº recovery Number of non-zeros entries in the matrices

Nº recovery Number of floating-point operations

(320 x 320) 350649 1.055302E+10 3.320000E+05

6.3 L-shaped panel

 xx   r  1  2  Q    1  cos    1      1 cos    3  

Fig. 20 L-shaped panel