Spectral element method

In mathematics, the spectral element method is a high order finite element method.

Introduced in a 1984 paper by A. T. Patera, the abstract begins: "A spectral element method that combines the generality of the finite element method with the accuracy of spectral techniques..."

The spectral element method is an elegant formulation of the finite element method with a high degree piecewise polynomial basis.

Discussion

The spectral method expands the solution in trigonometric series, a chief advantage being that the resulting method is of very high order. This approach relies on the fact that trigonometric polynomials are an orthonormal basis for $L^{2}(\Omega )$. The spectral element method chooses instead a high degree piecewise polynomial basis functions, also achieving a very high order of accuracy. The Spectral Element Method is a relatively new computational technique, where the element is defined using a higher order polynomial. Such polynomials are usually orthogonal Chebyshev polynomials or very high order Lobatto polynomials over non-uniformly spaced nodes. In SEM computational error decreases exponentially as the order of approximating polynomial, therefore a fast convergence of solution to the exact solution is realized with lesser degree of freedom of structure in comparison with FEM. In structural health monitoring FEM can be used for detecting large flaws in the structure as the flaws size reduced there is a need to use high frequency wave with very small wavelength therefore there is a need to fine the FEM mesh, But computational time required will be more and solution will not be exact hence SEM is used for detecting small flaws. By using SEM computational errors is avoided and time for computation will be less. Non-uniformity of nodes helps to make mass matrix diagonal which helps saving time and memory and also much useful for adopting Central Difference Method(CDM) The disadvantage of SEM includes modeling of complex geometry, compare to FEM

A-priori error estimate

The classic analysis of Galerkin methods and Céa's lemma holds here and it can be shown that, if u is the solution of the weak equation, u_N is the approximate solution and $u\in H^{s+1}(\Omega )$:

$\|u-u_{N}\|_{H^{1}(\Omega )}\leqq C_{s}N^{-s}\|u\|_{H^{s+1}(\Omega )}$

where C is independent from N and s is no larger than the degree of the piecewise polynomial basis. As we increase N, we can also increase the degree of the basis functions. In this case, if u is an analytic function:

$\|u-u_{N}\|_{H^{1}(\Omega )}\leqq C\exp(-\gamma N)$

where $\gamma$ depends only on $u$.

Related methods

• G-NI or SEM-NI: these are the most used spectral methods. The Galerkin formulation of spectral methods or spectral element methods, for G-NI or SEM-NI respectively, is modified and Gaussian numerical integration is used instead of integrals in the definition of the bilinear form $a(\cdot ,\cdot )$ and in the functional $F$. These method are a family of Petrov–Galerkin methods their convergence is a consequence of Strang's lemma.
• The spectral element method uses tensor product space spanned by nodal basis functions associated with Gauss–Lobatto points. In contrast, the p-version finite element method spans a space of high order polynomials by nodeless basis functions, chosen approximately orthogonal for numerical stability. Since not all interior basis functions need to be present, the p-version finite element method can create a space that contains all polynomials up to a given degree with many fewer degrees of freedom. However, some speedup techniques possible in spectral methods due to their tensor-product character are no longer available. The name p-version means that accuracy is increased by increasing the order of the approximating polynomials (thus, p) rather than decreasing the mesh size, h.
• The hp finite element method (hp-FEM) combines the advantages of the h and p refinements to obtain extremely fast, exponential convergence rates.