Galerkin’s weighted residual

Next, we apply Galerkin s weighted residual method and reduce the order of integration of the various terms in the above equations using the Green-Gauss Theorem (9.1.2) for each element. For a simpler presentation we will deal with each term in the above equations separately. The terms of the x-component (eqn. (9.95)) of the penalty formulation momentum balance become... 

The unknown nodal displacements are obtained using Galerkin s weighted residual method. The inner product of the governing equation with respect to each of the interpolation functions is set to zero over the whole domain 2. However, the 4 order derivative term in governing equation requires the interpolation function to have continuity. In other words, the first derivatives of Nj with respect to x and z should be continuous along the inter-element boundary to avoid infinity in the integration of the so-called "stiffness" matrix. Hence, we introduce a new variable O such that... 

In order to reduce the continuity requirements of the trial functions f, usually the weaker residual statement (2.8) is used and although not necessary, the weight functions are taken equal to the trial functions (Galerkin s method producing a symmetric matrix) to obtain... 

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