Consistent bilinear formulation

An element for the stress components composed of 16 sub-elements (4x4) on which bilinear (continuous) polynomials are used, was introduced by Marchal and Crochet in [28]. This leads to a continuous C° approximation of the three variables. The velocity is approximated by biquadratic polynomials while the pressure is linear. Fortin and Pierre ([17]) made a mathematical analysis of the Stokes problem for this three-field formulation. They conclude that the polynomial approximations of the different variables should satisfy the generalized inf-sup (Brezzi-Babuska) condition introduced by Marchal and Crochet and they proved it was the case for the Marchal and Crochet element. In order to take into account the hyperbolic character of the constitutive equation, Marchal and Crochet have implemented and compared two different methods. The first is the Streamline-Upwind/Petrov-Galerkin (SUPG). Thus a so-called non-consistent Streamline-Upwind (SU) is also considered (already used in [13]). As a test problem, they selected the "stick-slip" flow. With SUPG method applied to this problem, wiggles in the stress and the velocity field were obtained. In the SU method, the modified weighting function only applies to the convective terms in the constitutive equations. 

The structure of the expression for < >totai is that of a bilinear form it consists of a sum of products of two factors. One of these factors in each term is a flow quantify (heat flux q, mass diffusion flux jc, momentum flux expressed by the viscous stress tensor a, and chemical reaction rate rr). The other factor in each term is related to a gradient of an intensive state variable (gradients of temperature, chemical potential and velocity) and may contain the external force gc or a difference of thermodynamic state variables, viz. the chemical affinity Ar. These quantities which multiply the fluxes in the expression for the entropy production are called thermodynamic forces or affinities. Even if the entropy equation formulated in this section is not independent of the other energy equations, the solution of this equation can provide some useful information ... 

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