The Improved Element-Free Galerkin Method Based on the Nonsingular Weight Functions for Inhomogeneous Swelling of Polymer Gels

Abstract

In this paper, the interpolating moving least-squares (IMLS) method based on a nonsingular weight function is used to construct the approximation function, the weak form of the problem of inhomogeneous swelling of polymer gels is used to obtain the final discretized equations, and penalty method is applied to impose the displacement boundary condition, then an improved element-free Galerkin (IEFG) method for the problem of the inhomogeneous swelling of polymer gels is presented. Three selected examples of inhomogeneous swelling of polymer gels solved with the IEFG method are given in this paper. The accuracy of the numerical solutions of the IEFG method are discussed by using different weight functions, penalty factor, scale parameter of influence domain, node distribution and step number. Numerical results of the IEFG method for inhomogeneous swelling of polymer gels show that this method has great precision, and it can solve large deformation problems of polymer gels effectively.