Relaxing strong compatibility at atomistic-continuum interface: Consistent linear coupling method
Pouya Towhidi and Manouchehr Salehi
Mechanics of Materials, 200, 105204 (2025).

ABSTRACT
In this paper, we develop a brand-new coupling method called consistent linear
coupling (CLC) with a view to resolving the difficulty of scaling down of the
interface elements in the strong compatibility coupling (SCC), employed in the
most accurate multiscale methods such as quasicontinuum. To this end, the CLC
determines some conditions required to be satisfied to reproduce the SCC
rigorously, regardless of the size of the interface elements. Therefore, it can
produce a solution as accurate as the SCC with two additional features:
significantly less computational cost and easier implementation. The CLC-based
schemes are compared with well-known coupling methods including the SCC in terms
of solving quasi-static 3D nanoscale contact and a 2D crystal under uniaxial
tension. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the CLC with regard to
the accuracy and computational efficiency.