A Differential Quadrature Finite Element Method

Abstract

This paper studies the differential quadrature finite element method (DQFEM) systematically, as a combination of differential quadrature method (DQM) and standard finite element method (FEM), and formulates one- to three-dimensional (1-D to 3-D) element matrices of DQFEM. It is shown that the mass matrices of C0 finite element in DQFEM are diagonal, which can reduce the computational cost for dynamic problems. The Lagrange polynomials are used as the trial functions for both C0 and C1 differential quadrature finite elements (DQFE) with regular and/or irregular shapes, this unifies the selection of trial functions of FEM. The DQFE matrices are simply computed by algebraic operations of the given weighting coefficient matrices of the differential quadrature (DQ) rules and Gauss-Lobatto quadrature rules, which greatly simplifies the constructions of higher order finite elements. The inter-element compatibility requirements for problems with C1 continuity are implemented through modifying the nodal parameters using DQ rules. The reformulated DQ rules for curvilinear quadrilateral domain and its implementation are also presented due to the requirements of application. Numerical comparison studies of 2-D and 3-D static and dynamic problems demonstrate the high accuracy and rapid convergence of the DQFEM.