High-Order Spectral Finite Elements in Analysis of Collinear Wave Mixing

Implementing collinear wave mixing techniques with numerical methods to detect acoustic nonlinearity due to damage and defects is of vital importance in nondestructive examination engineering. However, numerical simulations in existing literatures are often limited due to the compromise between computational efficiency and accuracy. In order to balance the contradiction, spectral finite element (abbreviated as SFE) with 3 × 3 and 8 × 6 nodes is developed to simulate collinear wave mixing for 1D and 2D cases in this study. The comparisons among analytical solutions, experiments, finite element method (FEM), and spectral finite element method are presented to validate the feasibility, efficiency, and accuracy of the proposed SFEs. The results demonstrate that the proposed SFEs are capable of increasing computational efficiency by as much as 14 times while maintaining the same accuracy in comparison with FEM. In addition, five 3 × 3 nodes’ SFEs or one 8 × 6 nodes’ SFE per the shortest wavelength is sufficient to capture mixing waves. Finally, the proposed 8 × 6 nodes’ SFE is recommended for collinear wave mixing to detect damage, which can offer more accuracy with similar efficiency compared to 3 × 3 nodes’ SFE.