Spherical Shape Functions for a Six-Node Tri-Rectangular Prism and an Eight-Node Quadrangular Right Prism

In this work, we present the procedure to obtain exact spherical shape functions for finite element modeling applications, without resorting to any kind of approximation, for generic prismatic spherical elements and for the case of spherical six-node tri-rectangular and eight-node quadrangular spherical prisms. The proposed spherical shape functions, given in explicit analytical form, are expressed in geographic coordinates, namely colatitude, longitude and distance from the center of the sphere. We demonstrate that our analytical shape functions satisfy all the properties required by this class of functions, deriving at the same time the analytical expression of the Jacobian, which allows us changes in coordinate systems. Within the perspective of volume integration on Earth, entering a variety of geophysical and geodetic problems, as for mass change contribution to gravity, we consider our analytical expression of the shape functions and Jacobian for the six-node tri-rectangular and eight-node quadrangular right spherical prisms as reference volumes to evaluate the volume of generic spherical triangular and quadrangular prisms over the sphere; volume integration is carried out via Gauss–Legendre quadrature points. We show that for spherical quadrangular prisms, the percentage volume difference between the exact and the numerically evaluated volumes is independent from both the geographical position and the depth and ranges from 10⁻³ to lower than 10⁻⁴ for angular dimensions ranging from 1° × 1° to 0.25° × 0.25°. A satisfactory accuracy is attained for eight Gauss–Legendre quadrature points. We also solve the Poisson equation and compare the numerical solution with the analytical solution, obtained in the case of steady-state heat conduction with internal heat production. We show that, even with a relatively coarse grid, our elements are capable of providing a satisfactory fit between numerical and analytical solutions, with a maximum difference in the order of 0.2% of the exact value.