Computational electro‐elasticity and magneto‐elasticity for quasi‐incompressible media immersed in free space

Abstract

Summary In this work, a mixed variational formulation to simulate quasi‐incompressible electro‐active or magneto‐active polymers immersed in the surrounding free space is presented. A novel domain decomposition is used to disconnect the primary coupled problem and the arbitrary free‐space mesh update problem. Exploiting this decomposition, we describe a block‐iterative approach to solving the linearised multiphysics problem, and a physically and geometrically based, three‐parameter method to update the free space mesh. Several application‐driven example problems are implemented to demonstrate the robustness of the mixed formulation for both electro‐elastic and magneto‐elastic problems involving both finite deformations and quasi‐incompressible media. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.