Construction of near optimal meshes for 3D curved domains with thin sections and singularities for p-version method

The adaptive variable p- and hp-version finite element method can achieve exponential convergence rate when a near optimal finite element mesh is provided. For general 3D domains, near optimal p-version meshes require large curved elements over the smooth portions of the domain, geometrically graded curved elements to the singular edges and vertices, and a controlled layer of curved prismatic elements in the thin sections. This paper presents a procedure that accepts a CAD solid model as input and creates a curved mesh with the desired characteristics. One key component of the procedure is the automatic identification of thin sections of the model through a set of discrete medial surface points computed from an Octree-based tracing algorithm and the generation of prismatic elements in the thin directions in those sections. The second key component is the identification of geometric singular edges and the generation of geometrically graded meshes in the appropriate directions from the edges. Curved local mesh modification operations are applied to ensure the mesh can be curved to the geometry to the required level of geometric approximation.     

Mesh generation and mesh refinement procedures for the analysis of concrete shells

In this paper, a mesh generation and mesh refinement procedure for adaptive finite element (FE) analyses of real-life surface structures are proposed. For mesh generation, the advancing front method is employed. FE meshes of curved structures are generated in the respective 2D parametric space of the structure. Thereafter, the 2D mesh is mapped onto the middle surface of the structure. For mesh refinement, two different modes, namely uniform and adaptive mesh refinement, are considered. Remeshing in the context of adaptive mesh refinement is controlled by the spatial distribution of the estimated error of the FE results. Depending on this distribution, remeshing may result in a partial increase and decrease, respectively, of the element size. In contrast to adaptive mesh refinement, uniform mesh refinement is characterized by a reduction of the element size in the entire domain. The different refinement strategies are applied to ultimate load analysis of a retrofitted cooling tower. The influence of the underlying FE discretization on the numerical results is investigated.     

Automatic generation of finite element meshes

This paper describes a new algorithm for the automatic generation of finite element meshes of arbitrary multiply connected domains. The strategy is based upon the construction of a mapping from the generated mesh into a regular one. The scheme is designed for maximum flexibility and is able to generate meshes of triangular or quadrilateral curved elements. Several examples are presented to illustrate the applicability of the algorithm.     

Generation of triangular mesh with specified size by circle packing

This paper describes an algorithm for the generation of a finite element mesh with a specified element size over an unbound 2D domain using the advancing front circle packing technique. Unlike the conventional frontal method, the procedure does not start from the object boundary but starts from a convenient point within the open domain. As soon as a circle is added to the generation front, triangular elements are directly generated by properly connecting frontal segments with the centre of the new circle. Circles are packed closely and in contact with the existing circles by an iterative procedure according to the specified size control function. In contrast to other mesh generation schemes, the domain boundary is not considered in the process of circle packing, this reduces a lot of geometrical checks for intersection between frontal segments. If the mesh generation of a physical object is required, the object boundary can be introduced. The boundary recovery procedure is fast and robust by tracing neighbours of triangular elements. The finite element mesh generated by circle packing can also be used through a mapping process to produce parametric surface meshes of the required characteristics. The sizes of circles in the pack are controlled by the principal surface curvatures. Five examples are given to show the effectiveness and robustness of mesh generation and the application of circle packing to mesh generation over curved surfaces.     

Adaptive dimension splitting algorithm for three-dimensional elliptic equations

An adaptive dimension splitting algorithm for three-dimensional (3D) elliptic equations is presented in this paper. We propose residual and recovery-based error estimators with respect to X?Y plane direction and Z direction, respectively, and construct the corresponding adaptive algorithm. Two-sided bounds of the estimators guarantee the efficiency and reliability of such error estimators. Numerical examples verify their efficiency both in estimating the error and in refining the mesh adaptively. This algorithm can be compared with or even better than the 3D adaptive finite element method with tetrahedral elements in some cases. What is more, our new algorithm involves only two-dimensional mesh and one-dimensional mesh in the process of refining mesh adaptively, and it can be implemented in parallel.     

常用曲面的变尺寸三角形网格划分

针对常用的旋转面（包括圆锥面、圆柱面、圆台面、圆环面等）、柱状平扫面的特点,在参数平面内采用统一的数据结构表示,将曲面网格划分问题归结为对参数平面的平面网格划分问题。在对参数平面进行网格划分时,根据网格尺寸要求生成适当的内部结点,然后用Ｄｄｌａｕｎａｙ三角化方法生成变尺寸光滑过渡的高质量形,满足有限元高精度分析计算的需要。     

Moving curved mesh adaptation for higher-order finite element simulations

Higher-order finite element method requires valid curved meshes in three-dimensional domains to achieve the solution accuracy. When applying adaptive higher-order finite elements in large-scale simulations, complexities that arise include moving the curved mesh adaptation along with the critical domains to achieve computational efficiency. This paper presents a procedure that combines Bézier mesh curving and size-driven mesh adaptation technologies to address those requirements. A moving mesh size field drives a curved mesh modification procedure to generate valid curved meshes that have been successfully analyzed by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory researchers to simulate the short-range wakefields in particle accelerators. The analysis results for a 8-cavity cryomodule wakefield demonstrate that valid curvilinear meshes not only make the time-domain simulations more reliable, but also improve the computational efficiency up to 30%. The application of moving curved mesh adaptation to an accelerator cavity coupler shows a tenfold reduction in execution time and memory usage without loss in accuracy as compared to uniformly refined meshes.     

Generation of anisotropic mesh by ellipse packing over an unbounded domain

With the advance of the finite element method, general fluid dynamic and traffic flow problems with arbitrary boundary definition over an unbounded domain are tackled. This paper describes an algorithm for the generation of anisotropic mesh of variable element size over an unbounded 2D domain by using the advancing front ellipse packing technique. Unlike the conventional frontal method, the procedure does not start from the object boundary but starts from a convenient point within an open domain. The sequence of construction of the packing ellipses is determined by the shortest distance from the fictitious centre in such a way that the generation front is more or less a circular loop with occasional minor concave parts due to element size variation. As soon as an ellipse is added to the generation front, finite elements are directly generated by properly connecting frontal segments with the centre of the new ellipse. Ellipses are packed closely and in contact with the existing ellipses by an iterative procedure according to the specified anisotropic metric tensor. The anisotropic meshes generated by ellipse packing can also be used through a mapping process to produce parametric surface meshes of various characteristics. The size and the orientation of the ellipses in the pack are controlled by the metric tensor as derived from the principal surface curvatures. In contrast to other mesh generation schemes, the domain boundary is not considered in the process of ellipse packing, this reduces a lot of geometrical checks for intersection between frontal segments. Five examples are given to show the effectiveness and robustness of anisotropic mesh generation and the application of ellipse packing to mesh generation over various curved surfaces.     

Improving accuracy of high-order discontinuous Galerkin method for time-domain electromagnetics on curvilinear domains

The paper discusses high-order geometrical mapping for handling curvilinear geometries in high-accuracy discontinuous Galerkin simulations for time-domain Maxwell problems. The proposed geometrical mapping is based on a quadratic representation of the curved boundary and on the adaptation of the nodal points inside each curved element. With high-order mapping, numerical fluxes along curved boundaries are computed much more accurately due to the accurate representation of the computational domain. Numerical experiments for two-dimensional and three-dimensional propagation problems demonstrate the applicability and benefits of the proposed high-order geometrical mapping for simulations involving curved domains.     

Free-surface flow simulations in the presence of inclined walls

Difficulties associated with free-surface finite element flow simulations are related to (a) nonlinear and advective nature of most hydrodynamic flows, (b) requirements for compatibility between velocity and pressure interpolation, (c) maintaining a valid computational mesh in the presence of moving boundaries, and (d) enforcement of the kinematic conditions at the free surface. Focusing on the last issue, we present an extension of the free-surface elevation equation to cases where the prescribed direction of the surface node motion is not uniformly vertical. The resulting hyperbolic generalized elevation equation is discretized using a Galerkin/least-squares formulation applied on the surface mesh. The elevation field so obtained is then used to impose displacement boundary conditions on the elastic mesh update scheme that governs the movement of interior mesh nodes. The proposed method is used to solve a two-dimensional problem of sloshing in a trapezoidal tank, and a three-dimensional application involving flow in a trapezoidal channel with bridge supports.     

Meshing volumes with curved boundaries

This paper introduces a three-dimensional mesh generation algorithm for domains whose boundaries are curved surfaces, possibly with sharp features. The algorithm combines a Delaunay-based surface mesher with a Ruppert-like volume mesher, resulting in a greedy scheme to sample the interior and the boundary of the domain simultaneously. The algorithm constructs provably good meshes, it gives control on the size of the mesh elements through a user-defined sizing field, and it guarantees the accuracy of the approximation of the domain boundary. A notable feature is that the domain boundary has to be known only through an oracle that can tell whether a given point lies inside the object and whether a given line segment intersects the boundary. This makes the algorithm generic enough to be applied to domains with a wide variety of boundary types, such as implicit surfaces, polyhedra, level-sets in 3D gray-scaled images, or point-set surfaces.     

Garment pattern generation from body scan data

An automatic garment pattern design system using three-dimensional body scan data has been developed. A body model has been generated from massive body scan data using segmentation and the Fourier series expansion method. The surface geometry of a standard garment model used in the apparel industry was reconstructed by stereovision technique and converted into a mesh structure. Surface warping algorithm was used to make an equalized geometry of two models, and multi-resolution mesh generation along with optimum planar pattern mapping algorithm were used to generate the optimum two-dimensional patterns of the garment.     

Solid-to-shell transition elements for the computation of interlaminar stresses

This paper presents an accurate and practical technique for coupling shell element models to three-dimensional continuum finite element models. The compatibility between these two types of formulations is enforced by degenerating a continuum element through kinematic constraints compatible with shell deformations. Two formulations of two-dimensional/three-dimensional transition elements are presented. The first and simplest formulation is based on the Mindlin-Reissner plate assumptions, and is found to perform well in a variety of problems involving the analysis of geometrically linear/non-linear laminated structures. The second formulation is based on a higher-order shell theory that allows stretching in the through-the-thickness direction. This additional freedom virtually eliminates the interlaminar normal stress boundary layer that can form in lower-order transition elements. Finally, the coupling of two-dimensional to three-dimensional subdomains is enriched with the use of an interface element, which can be used in conjunction with either transition formulation. The interface element improves the efficiency of the solid-to-shell transition modeling scheme by allowing the independent selection of optimal mesh sizes in the shell and the three-dimensional regions of the model.     

Adaptive finite element mesh triangulation using self-organizing neural networks

The finite element method is a computationally intensive method. Effective use of the method requires setting up the computational framework in an appropriate manner, which typically requires expertise. The computational cost of generating the mesh may be much lower, comparable, or in some cases higher than the cost associated with the numeric solver of the partial differential equations, depending on the application and the specific numeric scheme at hand.The aim of this paper is to present a mesh generation approach using the application of self-organizing artificial neural networks through adaptive finite element computations. The problem domain is initially constructed using the self-organizing neural networks. This domain is used as the background mesh which forms the input for finite element analysis and from which adaptive parameters are calculated through adaptivity analysis. Subsequently, self-organizing neural network is used again to adjust the location of randomly selected mesh nodes as is the coordinates of all nodes within a certain neighborhood of the chosen node. The adjustment is a movement of the selected nodes toward a specific input point on the mesh. Thus, based on the results obtained from the adaptivity analysis, the movement of nodal points adjusts the element sizes in a way that the concentration of elements will occur in the regions of high stresses. The methods and experiments developed here are for two-dimensional triangular elements but seem naturally extendible to quadrilateral elements.     

GEOMPACK — a software package for the generation of meshes using geometric algorithms

We describe the mathematical software package GEOMPACK, which contains standard Fortran 77 routines for the generation of two-dimensional triangular and three-dimensional tetrahedral finite element meshes using efficient geometric algorithms. This package results from our research into mesh generation and geometric algorithms. It contains routines for constructing two- and three-dimensional Delaunay triangulations, decomposing a general polygonal region into simple or convex polygons, constructing the visibility polygon of a simple polygon from a viewpoint, and other geometric algorithms, from which our mesh generation method is built and others can be implemented. Our method generates meshes in polygonal or polyhedral regions specified by their boundary representation and possible interfaces between subregions.     

Two-Part Texture Mappings

Most published techniques for mapping two-dimensional texture patterns onto three-dimensional curved surfaces assume that either the texture pattern has been predistorted to compensate for the distortion of the mapping or the curved surfaces are represented parametrically. We address the problem of mapping undistorted planar textures onto arbitrarily represented surfaces. Our mapping technique is done in two parts. First the texture pattern is embedded in 3-space on an intermediate surface. Then the pattern is projected onto the target surface in a way that depends only on the geometry of the target object (not on its parameterization). Both steps have relatively low distortion, so the original texture need not be predistorted. We also discuss interactive techniques that make two-part mapping practical.     

Error analysis and adaptive refinement of boundary elements in elastic problem

The adaptive boundary element mesh generation based on an error analysis scheme called ‘sample point error analysis’ developed previously for the potential problem is extended and applied to the two-dimensional static elastic analysis. The errors on each element are determined as the required modification so aa to enforce the boundary integral equation to hold on the points other than the assumed initial nodes, which are referred to as the sample points. Boundary elements refinement, h-version in this study, is performed with the aid of the extended error indicator defined by the above-mentioned errors multiplied by the corresponding fundamental solutions. Two-dimensional simple problems are analysed to validate the utility of the proposed method.     

基于STEP的三维表面有限元网格生成技术的研究*

研究了三维表面有限元网格自动生成的技术,利用映射法实现了模型表面的三角网格剖分。基于STEP文件格式的模型的导入和重建,将模型的每个表面映射至参数空间,利用推进波前法生成参数面网格,然后映射回三维表面。研制了一套网格剖分策略,运用该策略对多种类型表面进行了分析求解。     

Automatic mesh generation and modification techniques for mixed quadrilateral and hexahedral element meshes of non-manifold models

A typical geometric model usually consists of both solid sections and thin-walled sections. Through using a suitable dimensional reduction algorithm, the model can be reduced to a non-manifold model consisting of solid portions and two-dimensional portions which represent the mid-surfaces of the thin-walled sections. It is desirable to mesh the solid entities using three-dimensional elements and the surface entities using two-dimensional elements. This paper proposes a robust scheme to automatically generate such a mesh of mixed two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements. It also ensures that the mesh is conforming at the interface of the non-manifold geometries. Different classes of problems are identified and their corresponding solutions are presented.