Variational h-adaption for coupled thermomechanical problems

International audienceIn this paper, a variational mesh h-adaption approach is presented for strongly coupled thermo-mechanical problems. The mesh is adapted by local subdivision controlled by an energy criterion. Thermal and thermo-mechanical problems are of interest here. In particular, steady and transient purely thermal problems, transient strongly coupled thermo-elasticity and thermo-plasticity problems are investigated. Different test cases are performed to test the robustness of the algorithm for the problems listed above. Since the algorithm is based on a set of tolerance parameters, parametric analyses and a study of their respective influence on the mesh adaption is carried out. This detailed analysis is performed on uni-dimensional problems, and a final example is provided in two dimensions