Mass conservation for instantaneous sources in FEM3 simulations of material dispersion

This report presents the results of a systematic study in which it is shown that the numerical integration errors in determining material mass content are negligible; the material phase-change model by itself is not a cause of material mass variation; and a linear relation between fractional mass change and fractional density change at the source center for given mesh and source geometries exists over a range of values from 10-5 to 10-1. This suggests that the omission of the ∂ rho/∂t term from the mass conservation equation is the cause of the observed non-conservation of mass by FEM3. It is shown that these mass variations can be minimized by minimizing the initial density gradients in the source region. 5 refs., 18 figs., 4 tabs