A stable node-based smoothed finite element method for acoustic problems

• We present a stable node-based smoothed finite element method for acoustic analysis.
• The SNS-FEM can greatly reduce the dispersion error for high wave number problems.
• The present formulation has higher precision and faster convergence rate.
• Higher computational efficiency can be obtained by employing the SNS-FEM.
• The developed methodology works well even for extremely distorted meshes.

It is well-known that the classical “overly-soft” node-based smoothed finite element method (NS-FEM) fails to provide reliable results to the Helmholtz equation due to the “temporal instability”. To cure the fatal drawback of NS-FEM and reduce the dispersion error in computational acoustics, this paper proposed a stable node-based smoothed finite element method (SNS-FEM) for analyzing acoustic problems using linear triangular (for 2D space) and tetrahedral (for 3D space) elements that can be generated automatically for any complicated configurations. In the present formulation, the system stiffness matrix is computed using the smoothed acoustic pressure gradients together with the gradient variance items over the smoothing domains associated with nodes of element mesh. It turns out the addition of stabilization term makes the SNS-FEM possess an ideal stiffness, thus successfully cures the temporal instability and significantly reduces the dispersion error in acoustic problems. Numerical examples, including both benchmark cases and practical engineering problems, demonstrate that the SNS-FEM possesses the following important properties: (1) temporal stability; (2) super accuracy and super convergence; (3) higher computational efficiency; (4) insensitive to mesh distortion.