[CIG-SHORT] Question about accuracy in Pylith

Brad Aagaard baagaard at usgs.gov
Fri Oct 14 12:05:55 PDT 2016


Demian,

For a quasi-static problem the global accuracy of the solution should 
not be controlled by the worse cells. You should aim for a condition 
number of about 2.0 or less. I strongly recommend using ParaView to see 
if there is a correlation between condition number (or aspect ratio) and 
the local fluctuations in stress/strain that you see. If there is a 
correlation, this should tell you what condition number to aim for.

Regards,
Brad


On 10/14/2016 11:58 AM, Demian Gomez wrote:
> Hi Brad,
>
> Thanks. Here's the output for the mesh quality:
>
> Tet quality, 3297540 elements:
>
> Condition No. ranges from 1.000e+00 to 4.650e+00 (3297540 entities)
>
> Red ranges from 4.128e+00 to 4.650e+00 (3 entities)
>
> Magenta ranges from 3.607e+00 to 4.128e+00 (69 entities)
>
> DkYellow ranges from 3.086e+00 to 3.607e+00 (196 entities)
>
> Yellow ranges from 2.564e+00 to 3.086e+00 (862 entities)
>
> Green ranges from 2.043e+00 to 2.564e+00 (4427 entities)
>
> Cyan ranges from 1.521e+00 to 2.043e+00 (75597 entities)
>
> Blue ranges from 1.000e+00 to 1.521e+00 (3216386 entities)
>
>
> The highest Co. number is 4.65 and there are only 3 elements, mostly on
> the edges. Can this distort all the solution? Also, although we want all
> the elements to be as close to 1 as possible, is there an acceptable
> range limit?
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Demián
>
>
> --
> *Dr. Demián D. Gómez*
> Postdoctoral Researcher
> The Ohio State University - School of Earth Sciences
> 275 Mendenhall Laboratory
> 125 South Oval Mall
> Columbus, Ohio 43210
> Cell: +1 (901) 900-7324
> email: gomez.124 at osu.edu <mailto:gomez.124 at osu.edu>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 2:28 PM, Brad Aagaard <baagaard at usgs.gov
> <mailto:baagaard at usgs.gov>> wrote:
>
>     Demian,
>
>     Have you looked at mesh quality (aspect and condition numbers close
>     to 1.0)? Distorted cells (slivers, squashed tets, etc) will be
>     stiffer and may cause local stress/strain concentrations. My guess
>     is that your 2-D mesh has better quality. Look to see if there is a
>     correlation between condition number or aspect ratio and the kinks,
>     etc in your stress field (you can do this in ParaView). If so, then
>     spend some time playing with the bias value, cell size, and
>     smoothing to improve the mesh quality.
>
>     Regards,
>     Brad
>
>
>
>     On 10/14/2016 11:17 AM, Demian Gomez wrote:
>
>         Dear Brad, Matt and Charles,
>
>         I have a question regarding the accuracy of the solution using
>         tets. I
>         have a model with a biased tet mesh (4 km at the fault and 160
>         km at the
>         edges, ~2200 km away) from which I am trying to get the strain and
>         stress on some depth profiles at ~ 400 km from the fault. I am
>         running
>         Pylith with the refiner on (only one level) to refine my mesh and
>         improve the resolution.
>
>         The problem I'm having is that when I plot the strains and
>         stresses, the
>         plots are very "noisy" (see profiles_70.png). The displacement
>         looks ok,
>         maybe a few bumps and kinks here and there, but acceptable. I think
>         these small displacement kinks are translating into the "noise" and
>         larger kinks in strain and stress. I did tests in 2D (on a cross
>         section
>         of my 3D model) to figure out the best discretization size, and
>         if I use
>         a mesh with constant element size (say, 1 km), then everything
>         is smooth
>         and nice (see profiles_70_2D.png). However, a 3D model of the
>         size that
>         I need meshed with 1 km elements is huge and very impractical.
>         Moreover,
>         there shouldn't be any problems with using a biased mesh since
>         there are
>         examples within Pylith were you guys use this type of mesh.
>
>         I know that I can improve the accuracy by using hexes, but
>         unfortunately
>         I've been trying to mesh my model with hexes (in Trelis) without any
>         success. The model has the shape of a spherical cap and
>         apparently there
>         is something that Trelis doesn't like about this geometry. No
>         matter how
>         I divide and subdivide the model to help the mesher, there is
>         always one
>         volume that I cannot mesh. With tets, however, it works fine.
>
>         Do you have any suggestions on what can I try to improve these
>         results,
>         without increasing the number of elements? I am at the limit of
>         resources in terms of the model size (right now I'm at 125 GB of
>         required memory to run my model). I could start using the HPC but it
>         seems that there should be another way to solve this problem
>         other than
>         "brute force", i.e. making the model larger and using a bigger
>         computer.
>         You may also have suggestions regarding the meshing process. I would
>         appreciate any advise that can help me to solve my problem. Let
>         me know
>         if there is any additional information you may need that I did
>         not include.
>
>         Cheers,
>         Demián
>
>         PS: I've attached the cfg files, just in case you want to see
>         how I'm
>         running the problem.
>
>         --
>         *Dr. Demián D. Gómez*
>         Postdoctoral Researcher
>         The Ohio State University - School of Earth Sciences
>         275 Mendenhall Laboratory
>         125 South Oval Mall
>         Columbus, Ohio 43210
>         Cell: +1 (901) 900-7324 <tel:%2B1%20%28901%29%20900-7324>
>         email: gomez.124 at osu.edu <mailto:gomez.124 at osu.edu>
>         <mailto:gomez.124 at osu.edu <mailto:gomez.124 at osu.edu>>
>
>
>
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