Penalty functions in constrained variational principles for element free Galerkin method

An improved formulation of the Element Free Galerkin (EFG) method is presented in this paper. In the Element Free Galerkin method, enforcement of essential boundary conditions is awkward as the approximations do not satisfy the Kronecker delta condition. A method of generating admissible approximations to the essential boundary conditions is given, using a constrained variational principle with a penalty function. Several examples of Laplace equation are solved and compared with analytical solutions and flux Lagrange multipliers, to demonstrate the performance of the method. A parametric study comparing three different weight functions is made. A guide on the EFG/penalisation method is given, considering the possibility of using irregular grids with a variable domain of influence for each point.