Robust virtual element methods for coupled stress-assisted diffusion problems
Abstract
This paper aims first to perform robust continuous analysis of a mixed nonlinear formulation for stress-assisted diffusion of a solute that interacts with an elastic material, and second to propose and analyse a virtual element formulation of the model problem. The two-way coupling mechanisms between the Herrmann formulation for linear elasticity and the reaction-diffusion equation (written in mixed form) consist of diffusion-induced active stress and stress-dependent diffusion. The two sub-problems are analysed using the extended Babu\v{s}ka--Brezzi--Braess theory for perturbed saddle-point problems. The well-posedness of the nonlinearly coupled system is established using a Banach fixed-point strategy under the smallness assumption on data. The virtual element formulations for the uncoupled sub-problems are proven uniquely solvable by a fixed-point argument in conjunction with appropriate projection operators. We derive the a priori error estimates, and test the accuracy and performance of the proposed method through computational simulations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2401.09714,
title = {Robust virtual element methods for coupled stress-assisted diffusion problems},
author = {Rekha Khot and Andres E. Rubiano and Ricardo Ruiz-Baier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.09714},
year = {2025}
}