The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a well-established framework for solving partial differential equations on polygonal and polyhedral meshes. In this paper, we introduce a novel hybrid VEM that integrates both conforming and nonconforming virtual spaces. We apply this formulation to a three-dimensional linear elasticity problem, providing rigorous theoretical analysis to demonstrate optimal convergence rates. Furthermore, we explore the extension of this approach to domains with curved boundaries.

We generalize and improve the finite element method for linearized Magnetohydrodynamics introduced in (Beirão da Veiga et al., SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 62(4):1539–1564 (2024)). The main novelty is that the proposed scheme is able to handle also non-convex domains and less regular solutions. The method is proved to be pressure robust and quasi-robust with respect to both fluid and magnetic Reynolds numbers. A set of numerical tests confirms our theoretical findings.

We propose and analyze a class of finite element methods for the time-dependent incompressible magnetohydrodynamics system based on H(curl)-conforming discretizations for both the velocity and the magnetic field. This choice is guided by the aim of developing methods that are also suitable for the types of solutions arising in problems posed on nonconvex domains. Within this framework, we introduce three stabilized formulations, and study how the stabilization mechanisms employed influence their structural properties. In particular, we focus on suitability for nonconvex polyhedral domains, the need for Lagrange multipliers for the magnetic field, pressure-robustness, and quasi-robustness with respect to both the fluid and magnetic Reynolds numbers. The proposed formulations are further assessed through numerical experiments, highlighting their practical performance.

We propose and analyze a space-time discontinuous Galerkin method for the incompressible Stokes equations on moving domains within the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian setting. We use a contravariant Piola map in the definition of the discrete velocity space to preserve the pointwise divergence-free property on the discrete level. We show that the method is inf-sup stable, with no constraints on the spatial mesh or the time partition. We also establish a priori error estimates in the energy norm for arbitrary degrees of approximation in space and time. For piecewise-constant and piecewise-linear approximations in time, we show that the method is also robust at low viscosity regimes, and provide numerical evidence suggesting that this property extends to high-order cases as well. We present several numerical experiments to validate our theoretical findings.

In this work, we present a comprehensive theoretical analysis for Virtual Element discretizations of incompressible non-Newtonian flows governed by the Carreau-Yasuda constitutive law, in the shear-thickening regime (r > 2) including both degenerate (delta = 0) and non-degenerate (delta > 0) cases. The proposed Virtual Element method features two distinguishing advantages: the construction of an exactly divergence-free discrete velocity field and compatibility with general polygonal meshes. The analysis presented in this work extends a previous work, where only shear-thinning behavior (1 < r < 2) was considered. Indeed, the theoretical analysis of the shear-thickening setting requires several novel analytical tools, including: an inf-sup stability analysis of the discrete velocity-pressure coupling in non-Hilbertian norms, a stabilization term specifically designed to address the nonlinear structure as the exponent r > 2; and the introduction of a suitable discrete norm tailored to the underlying nonlinear constitutive relation. Numerical results demonstrate the practical performance of the proposed formulation.

In this work we design a novel C1-conforming virtual element method of arbitrary order k >= 2, to solve the biharmonic problem on a domain with curved boundary and internal curved interfaces in two dimensions. By introducing a suitable stabilizing form, we develop a rigorous interpolation, stability and convergence analysis obtaining optimal error estimates in the energy norm. Finally, we validate the theoretical findings through numerical experiments.

We consider a two-dimensional piecewise C^2 domain that cuts through a quasi-uniform fixed polygonal background mesh, for instance made of quadrilaterals. A simple procedure based on convex hulls gives rise to a rather small number of polygonal boundary elements of various shapes, including elements with small edges and large aspect ratios; this is the computational mesh for a virtual element method (VEM), a trimmed background mesh. We classify all possible geometric configurations and study their stability and approximability properties. This entails deriving robust stabilization mechanisms and interpolation estimates for anisotropic elements and elements with small cuts, as well as a weak maximum principle for enhanced virtual elements; these contributions have intrinsic interest for VEM theory on geometric flexibility. We prove that the resulting VEM is uniformly stable in H^1, and also show optimal order-regularity error estimates in H^1 and L^2. Insightful numerical experiments corroborate and complement our theory. The proposed method is suitable for treating ALE formulations of problems in moving domains.

In this work, a three-dimensional (3D) second-order serendipity virtual element method (S-VEM) is developed for the static and dynamic analysis of hyperelastic materials. The VEM framework is based on the projection of unknown basis functions onto polynomial spaces, allowing for flexible discretization with arbitrary polyhedral meshes. While most existing VEM formulations for 3D mechanical problems are discretized using first-order formulations, higher-order schemes offer improved precision, especially for nonlinear problems. However, conventional second-order VEM formulations introduce additional degrees of freedom (DOFs), such as body and surface moments, which complicate the implementation and reduce computation efficiency. To address this challenge, we propose a novel 3D second-order serendipity VEM that avoids any extra moment-related DOFs. This is the first application of a serendipity VEM to 3D static and dynamic problems in hyperelasticity. Furthermore, by integrating advanced mesh generation techniques, the proposed method enables hybrid simulations that combine second-order serendipity VEM and FEM to efficiently handle complex geometries.

We present a proof-of-concept methodology for generating curvilinear polygonal meshes suitable for high-order discretisations by the Virtual Element Method (VEM). A VEM discretisation requires the definition of a set of boundary and internal points used to define basis functions and compute integrals of polynomials. The procedure to locate these points on the boundary borrows ideas from previous work on a posteriori high-order mesh generation in which the geometrical inquiries to a B-rep model of the computational domain are performed via an interface to CAD libraries. Here we describe the steps of the procedure that transforms a straight-sided polygonal mesh, generated using third-party software, into a curvilinear boundary-conforming mesh. We discuss criteria for ensuring and verifying the validity of the mesh. Using an elliptic partial differential equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions as a model problem, we show that VEM discretisations on such meshes achieve the expected rates of convergence as the mesh resolution is increased. This is followed by an illustrative application of the method to the generation of a curvilinear polygonal mesh for an aerofoil geometry. We discuss polygonal curvilinear mesh quality and its enhancement, and use the motion of a cell vertex to appraise three elemental quality metrics, namely convexity, regularity and isotropy, and highlight some of the difficulties associated in their use for mesh quality optimisation. A derivative-free optimisation method is utilised to enhance curvilinear polygonal meshes by maximising a suitable measure of mesh quality. We propose such measure as a combination of the three quality metrics and apply it to optimise a distorted initial mesh for a ring geometry. We show that a suitable version of the convexity metric is effective in untangling invalid meshes. The VEM solution of a model elliptic equation is obtained for a ring geometry where a distorted and an optimised mesh show low errors, indicating that the VEM is robust and relatively insensitive to mesh distortion, and a reduction of the error in the optimised mesh. Finally, we use a more complex geometry, a computational domain for an aerofoil, as a benchmark to further illustrate the ability of the convexity metric to untangle meshes, and also to assess the suitability of two quality measures as optimisation targets to improve the overall quality of curvilinear polygonal meshes.

In this work, we prove what appear to be the first Reynolds-semi-robust and pressure-robust velocity error estimates for an H(div)-conforming approximation of unsteady incompressible flows of power-law type fluids. The proposed methods hinges on a discontinuous Galerkin approximation of the viscous term and a reinforced upwind-type stabilization of the convective term. The derived velocity error estimates account for pre-asymptotic orders of convergence observed in convection-dominated flows through regime-dependent estimates of the error contributions. A complete set of numerical results validate the theoretical findings.

We carry out a stability and convergence analysis for the fully discrete scheme obtained by combining a finite or virtual element spatial discretization with the upwind-discontinuous Galerkin time-stepping applied to the time-dependent advection-diffusion equation. A space- time streamline-upwind Petrov-Galerkin term is used to stabilize the method. More precisely, we show that the method is inf-sup stable with constant independent of the diffusion coefficient, which ensures the robustness of the method in the convection- and diffusion-dominated regimes. Moreover, we prove optimal convergence rates in both regimes for the error in the energy norm. An important feature of the presented analysis is the control in the full L2(0, T; L2(Q)) norm without the need of introducing an artificial reaction term in the model. We finally present some numerical experiments in (3 + 1)-dimensions that validate our theoretical results.

In this paper we propose and analyze a new Finite Element method for the solution of the two- and three-dimensional incompressible Navier--Stokes equations based on a hybrid discretization of both the velocity and pressure variables. The proposed method is pressure-robust, i.e., irrotational forcing terms do not affect the approximation of the velocity, and Reynolds-quasi-robust, with error estimates that, for smooth enough exact solutions, do not depend on the inverse of the viscosity. We carry out an in-depth convergence analysis highlighting pre-asymptotic convergence rates and validate the theoretical findings with a complete set of numerical experiments.

We derive error estimates of a finite element method for the approximation of solutions to a seven-fields formulation of a magnetohydrodynamics model, which preserves the energy of the system, and the magnetic and cross helicities on the discrete level.

We propose and analyze two convection quasi-robust and pressure robust finite element methods for a fully nonlinear time-dependent magnetohydrodynamics problem. The schemes make use of suitable upwind and CIP stabilizations to handle the fluid and magnetic convective terms. The developed error estimates are uniform in both diffusion parameters and optimal with respect to the diffusive norm; furthermore, for the second (more complex) method we are able to show a quicker error reduction rate in convection dominated regimes. A set of numerical tests support our theoretical findings.

We carry out a stability and convergence analysis of a fully discrete scheme for the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations resulting from combining an [Formula: see text]-conforming discontinuous Galerkin spatial discretization, and a discontinuous Galerkin time-stepping scheme. Such a scheme is proven to be pressure robust and Reynolds semi-robust. Standard techniques can be used to analyze only the case of lowest-order approximations in time. Therefore, we use some nonstandard test functions to prove existence of discrete solutions, unconditional stability, and quasi-optimal convergence rates for any degree of approximation in time. In particular, a continuous dependence of the discrete solution on the data of the problem, and quasi-optimal convergence rates for low and high Reynolds numbers are proven in an energy norm including the term [Formula: see text] for the velocity. In addition to the standard discontinuous Galerkin time-stepping scheme, which is fully implicit, we propose and analyze a novel high-order semi-implicit version that avoids the need of solving nonlinear systems of equations after the first time slab, thus improving the efficiency of the method. Some numerical experiments validating our theoretical results are presented for both schemes.

We propose a new finite element method for linearized Magnetohydrodynamics. The main novelty is that the proposed scheme is able to handle also non-convex domains and less regular solutions. The method is proved to be pressure robust and quasi-robust with respect to both fluid and magnetic Reynolds numbers.

We analyze a Discontinuous Galerkin method for a problem with linear advection-reaction and p-type diffusion, with Sobolev indices p is an element of (1,infinity). The discretization of the diffusion term is based on the full gradient including jump liftings and interior-penalty stabilization while, for the advective contribution, we consider a strengthened version of the classical upwind scheme. The developed error estimates track the dependence of the local contributions to the error on the local P & eacute;clet numbers. A set of numerical tests support the theoretical derivations.

In this paper we initiate the investigation of Virtual Elements with curved faces. We consider the case of a fixed curved boundary in two dimensions, as it happens in the approximation of problems posed on a curved domain or with a curved interface. While an approximation of the domain with polygons leads, for degree of accuracy k ≥ 2, to a sub-optimal rate of convergence, we show (both theoretically and numerically) that the proposed curved VEM lead to an optimal rate of convergence.

In this paper, we design and analyze a Virtual Element discretization for the steady motion of non -Newtonian pseudoplastic, incompressible Stokes fluids. A specific stabilization, tailored to mimic the monotonicity and boundedness properties of the continuous operator, is introduced and theoretically investigated. The proposed method has several appealing features, including the exact enforcement of the divergence free condition and the possibility of making use of fully general polygonal meshes. A complete well-posedness and convergence analysis of the proposed method is presented under mild assumptions on the non-linear laws, encompassing common examples such as the Carreau-Yasuda model. Numerical experiments validating the theoretical bounds as well as demonstrating the practical capabilities of the proposed formulation are presented.

In the present contribution we propose a novel conforming Finite Element scheme for the time-dependent Navier-Stokes equation, which is proven to be both convection quasi-robust and pressure robust. The method is built combining a "divergence-free" velocity/pressure couple (such as the Scott-Vogelius element), a Discontinuous Galerkin in time approximation, and a suitable SUPG-curl stabilization. A set of numerical tests, in accordance with the theoretical results, is included.