Comparison of two mesh-moving techniques for finite element simulations of galvanic corrosion

Abstract Galvanic corrosion is a destructive process between dissimilar metals. The present paper presents a constructed numerical test case to simulate galvanic corrosion of two dissimilar metals. This test case is used to study the accuracy of different implementations to track the dissolving anode boundary. One technique is to numerically simulate a mesh displacement based on the prescribed displacement at the anode boundary. The second method is to adjust only the boundary elements. Re-meshing after a certain number of time steps is applied to both implementations. They produce similar results for an electrical and electrochemical field problem. This work shows that mesh smoothing does not result in higher accuracy when modeling a moving anode front. Adjusting only the boundary elements is sufficient when frequent re-meshing is used.