A Legendre spectral element model for sloshing and acoustic analysis in nearly incompressible fluids
A new spectral finite element formulation is presented for modeling the sloshing and the acoustic waves in nearly incompressible fluids. The formulation makes use of the Legendre polynomials in deriving the finite element interpolation shape functions in the Lagrangian frame of reference. The formulated element uses GaussLobattoLegendre quadrature scheme for integrating the volumetric stiffness and the mass matrices while the conventional GaussLegendre quadrature scheme is used on the rotational stiffness matrix to completely eliminate the zero energy modes, which are normally associated with the Lagrangian FE formulation. The numerical performance of the spectral element formulated here is examined by doing the infsup test on a standard rectangular rigid tank partially filled with liquid. The eigenvalues obtained from the formulated spectral element are compared with the conventional equally spaced node locations of the h-type Lagrangian finite element and the predicted results show that these spectral elements are more accurate and give superior convergence. The efficiency and robustness of the formulated elements are demonstrated by solving few standard problems involving free vibration and dynamic response analysis with undistorted and distorted spectral elements, and the obtained results are compared with available results in the published literature.
legendre polynomials acoustic fluids sloshing motion incompressible locking numerical integration linear elements