A two-dimensional mesh generator for variable order triangular and rectangular elements

An improved method is presented for generating variable order elements by superelement generation. This method is simple to apply and requires less execution time in comparison with other variable order mesh generators. Depending on geometrical complexity and material variation, the superelements are manually determined to be refined into high or low order elements. Different mesh generation subroutines are employed to generate elements of different orders. The refined elements of different orders are finally patched to form a hybrid mesh. A FORTRAN program is given to generate finite element meshes of linear and quadratic triangular and rectangular elements automatically.     

Automatic construction of quadrilateral network of curves from triangular meshes

The aim of this study is to propose a method for building quadrilateral network of curves automatically from a huge number of triangular meshes. The curve net can be served as the framework of automatic surface reconstruction. The proposed method mainly includes three stages: mesh simplification, quadrangulation and curve net generation. Mesh simplification is employed to reduce the number of meshes in accordance with a quadratic error metric for each vertex. Additional post-processing criteria are also employed to improve the shape of the reduced meshes. For quadrangulation, a front composed of a sequence of edges is introduced. An algorithm is proposed to combine each pair of triangles along the front. A new front is then formed and quadrangulation is continued until all triangles are combined or converted. For curve net generation, each edge of quadrilateral meshes is projected onto the triangular meshes to acquire a set of slicing points first. A constrained curve fitting is then employed to convert all sets of slicing points into B-spline curves, with appropriate continuity conditions across adjacent curves. Several examples have been presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method and its application in automatic surface reconstruction.     

An automatic coarse and fine surface mesh generation scheme based on medial axis transform: Part i algorithms

We present an algorithm for the generation of coarse and fine finite element (FE) meshes on multiply connected surfaces, based on the medial axis transform (MAT). The MAT is employed to automatically decompose a complex shape into topologically simple subdomains, and to extract important shape characteristics and their length scales. Using this technique, we can create a coarse subdivision of a complex surface and select local element size to generate fine triangular meshes within those subregions in an automated manner. Therefore, this approach can lead to integration of fully automatic FE mesh generation functionality into FE preprocessing systems.     

A hybrid ant colony optimization approach for finite element mesh decomposition

This paper examines the application of the ant colony optimization algorithm to the partitioning of unstructured adaptive meshes for parallel explicit time-stepping finite element analysis. The concept of the ant colony optimization technique for finding approximate solutions to combinatorial optimization problems is described.The application of ant colony optimization for partitioning finite element meshes based on triangular elements is described.A recursive greedy algorithm optimization method is also presented as a local optimization technique to improve the quality of the solutions given by the ant colony optimization algorithm. The partitioning is based on the recursive bisection approach.The mesh decomposition is carried out using normal and predictive modes for which the predictive mode uses a trained multilayered feed-forward neural network which estimates the number of triangular elements that will be generated after finite elements mesh generation is carried out.The performance of the proposed hybrid approach for the recursive bisection of finite element meshes is examined by decomposing two mesh examples.     

三角形网格转化为四边形网格

现有的全自动网格划分算法大部分生成三角形网格。生成四边形网格更困难。为了缓解这个问题，本文研究并实现了三角形网格转化为四边形网格的线性算法。该算法是对已有的Ｏ（Ｎ＾２）算法的改进。     

Anisotropic quadrilateral mesh generation: An indirect approach

In this paper a new indirect approach is presented for anisotropic quadrilateral mesh generation based on discrete surfaces. The ability to generate grids automatically had a pervasive influence on many application areas in particularly in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics. In spite of considerable advances in automatic grid generation there is still potential for better performance and higher element quality. The aim is to generate meshes with less elements which fit some anisotropy criterion to satisfy numerical accuracy while reducing processing times remarkably. The generation of high quality volume meshes using an advancing front algorithm relies heavily on a well designed surface mesh. For this reason this paper presents a new technique for the generation of high quality surface meshes containing a significantly reduced number of elements. This is achieved by creating quadrilateral meshes that include anisotropic elements along a source of anisotropy.     

Subdomain generation using emergent ant colony optimization

Finite elements mesh decomposition is a well known optimization problem and is used to split a computationally expensive finite elements mesh into smaller subdomains for parallel finite elements analysis.The ant colony optimization is a type of algorithm that seeks to model the emergent behaviour observed in ant colonies and utilize this behaviour to solve combinatorial problems. This technique has been applied to several problems, most of which are graph related because the ant colony metaphor can be most easily applied to such types of problems. This paper examines the application of ant colony optimization algorithm to the partitioning of unstructured adaptive meshes for parallel explicit time-stepping finite elements analysis.The concept of ant colony optimization technique in addition to the notion of swarm intelligence for finding approximate solutions to combinatorial optimization problems is described. This algorithm combines the features of the classical ant colony optimization technique with swarm intelligence to form a model which is an artificial system designed to perform a certain task.The application of the ant colony optimization for partitioning finite elements meshes based on triangular elements using the swarm intelligence concept is described. A recursive greedy algorithm optimization method is also presented as a local optimization technique to improve the quality of the solutions given by the ant colony optimization algorithm. The partitioning is based on the recursive bisection approach.The mesh partitioning is carried out using normal and predictive modes for which the predictive mode uses a trained multi-layered feedforward neural network that estimates the number of triangular elements that will be generated after finite elements mesh generation is carried out.The performance of the proposed hybrid approach for the recursive bisection of finite elements meshes is examined by decomposing two mesh examples and comparing them with a well known finite elements domain decomposer.     

Construction of an objective function for optimization-based smoothing

An objective function for optimization-based smoothing is proposed for both linear and quadratic triangular and quadrilateral elements. Unlike currently published objective functions that are used to perform smoothing or untangling separately, this objective function can be used to untangle and smooth a mesh in a single process. The objective function is designed in such a way that it is easy and straightforward to be extended to higher order elements. The objective function has higher order continuous derivatives that make it suitable for optimization techniques. It has been shown empirically that the proposed function only has one minimum. With the integration of the proposed new objective function into our optimization-based smoothing algorithm, our combined Laplacian/optimization smoothing scheme provides us with satisfactory high quality meshes.     

散乱数据点的增量快速曲面重建算法

给出了一个新的散乱数据的曲面重建算法.算法充分利用邻近点集反映出的局部拓扑和几何信息,基于二维Delaunay 三角剖分技术快速地实现每个数据点的局部拓扑重建,然后通过自动矫正局部数据点的非法连接关系,以增量扩张的方式把局部三角网拼接成一张标准的整体二维流形网格.该算法在重建过程中能自动进行洞的检测,判断出散乱数据所蕴涵的开或闭的拓扑结构.实验结果表明,该算法高效、稳定,可以快速地直接重构出任意拓扑结构的二维流形三角形网格.     

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.     

平面及空间区域渐变无结构网格的自动生成

１．前 言 网格生成是许多数值计算首先要解决的问题．规则区域上的均匀网格,比较容易生成．但许多工程实际问题,求解区域边界形状极不规则,且由于物理参数的剧烈变化及解的性态复杂,对求解区域的网格疏密变化有某些特殊的要求．如何在非规则区域上自动生成符合使用者特殊要求的网格,是科学计算过程中人们所关心的问题． 本文基于 Ｄｅｌａｕｎａｙ三角划分原理,在二维（三维）区域给出一种自动生成渐变无结构三角形（四面体）网格的方法．对事先给定的指定结点集合和对应的间隔值集合,算法将首先自动生成全部边界结点和内部结点,然…     

基于车身曲面离散点的三角形网格优化

1.前 言 车身设计和制造中,常常需要解决曲面逆求的问题,即给定一组车身表面的三坐标测量点,如何求解其曲面网格来表达车身曲面的原始形状.目前常用的曲面逆求方法通常都是根据离散点来生成曲面的三角形网格,然而,由于曲面测量点分布的无序性和无规则性,无论采取何种逆求的方法,生成的三角形网格大都会存在尖角,长边和短边等缺点.如果直接将这样的三角形网格运用于有限元计算,必然会影响计算结果.对于这样的三角形,本文通过给     

Parallel quadrilateral subdomain generation for finite element analysis

In this article the Sub-domain Generation Method (SGM) previously developed for finite element meshes composed of triangular elements is generalised to account for meshes composed of arbitrary quadrilateral elements. A neural network of enhanced accuracy was developed to predict the number of quadrilaterals generated within each coarse quadrilateral element after refinement using an adaptive re-meshing procedure. Partitioning of the meshes was undertaken on the coarse mesh using a genetic algorithm to optimise the partitions considering both load balancing and interprocessor communication of the subsequent finite element analysis. A series of examples of increasing refinement were decomposed by considering a single coarse mesh of a fixed number of elements.     

基于球面调和映射的三维产品形态融合方法研究

三维产品形态的创新设计在产品造型设计中具有重要的地位,是提高产 品竞争力的重要手段。基于球面调和映射,提出一种新算法,在两个产品之间实现形态的变 形,进而产生多种产品形态。首先对两个三维产品形态划分三角网格; 然后将网格化的产品 形态嵌入到一单位球面上,生成嵌入体模型,该嵌入体与其三维产品形态有着相同的拓扑结 构;最后将这两个嵌入体融合,在两个形态之间建立一种对应关系,通过线性插值生成一系 列的中间形态。以两个不同形态的鼠标基体模型为例进行实验研究,结果表明该算法对于产 品形态的融合具有很好的适用性。在计算机辅助产品形态造型设计中将具有良好的应用前 景。     

基于车身曲面离散点的三角形网格生成

基于车身曲面的离散点,文章利用稀疏阵法搜寻法来自动生成三角形曲面。该方法首先通过曲面离散点在投影面上的投影点来生成稀疏矩阵,接着利用环形边表和边界搜寻盒来进行离散点的自动三角化。该方法算法简单,生成三角形的速度快,且生成的三角形网格适用于有限元分析和车身曲面的反求问题。文章最后给出的具体算例证明了该算法的有效性。     

Hexahedral Meshing With Varying Element Sizes

Hexahedral (or Hex‐) meshes are preferred in a number of scientific and engineering simulations and analyses due to their desired numerical properties. Recent state‐of‐the‐art techniques can generate high‐quality hex‐meshes. However, they typically produce hex‐meshes with uniform element sizes and thus may fail to preserve small‐scale features on the boundary surface. In this work, we present a new framework that enables users to generate hex‐meshes with varying element sizes so that small features will be filled with smaller and denser elements, while the transition from smaller elements to larger ones is smooth, compared to the octree‐based approach. This is achieved by first detecting regions of interest (ROIs) of small‐scale features. These ROIs are then magnified using the as‐rigid‐as‐possible deformation with either an automatically determined or a user‐specified scale factor. A hex‐mesh is then generated from the deformed mesh using existing approaches that produce hex‐meshes with uniform‐sized elements. This initial hex‐mesh is then mapped back to the original volume before magnification to adjust the element sizes in those ROIs. We have applied this framework to a variety of man‐made and natural models to demonstrate its effectiveness.     

Surface remeshing with robust high-order reconstruction

Remeshing is an important problem in variety of applications, such as finite element methods and geometry processing. Surface remeshing poses some unique challenges, as it must deliver not only good mesh quality but also good geometric accuracy. For applications such as finite elements with high-order elements (quadratic or cubic elements), the geometry must be preserved to high-order (third-order or higher) accuracy, since low-order accuracy may undermine the convergence of numerical computations. The problem is particularly challenging if the CAD model is not available for the underlying geometry, and is even more so if the surface meshes contain some inverted elements. We describe remeshing strategies that can simultaneously produce high-quality triangular meshes, untangling mildly folded triangles and preserve the geometry to high-order of accuracy. Our approach extends our earlier works on high-order surface reconstruction and mesh optimization by enhancing its robustness with a geometric limiter for under-resolved geometries. We also integrate high-order surface reconstruction with surface mesh adaptation techniques, which alter the number of triangles and nodes. We demonstrate the utilization of our method to meshes for high-order finite elements, biomedical image-based surface meshes, and complex interface meshes in fluid simulations.     

从表面重构的体数据实现3维网格剖分

目的 针对有限元分析中网格最优化问题,提出一种改进的生成四面体网格的自组织算法。方法 该算法首先应用几何方法将三角形表面模型重新构造成规定大小的分类体数据,同时由该表面模型建立平衡八叉树,计算用以控制网格尺寸的3维数组;然后将体数据转换成邻域内不同等值面的形态一致的边界指示数组;结合改进的自组织算法和相关3维数据的插值函数,达到生成四面体网格的目的。结果 实验结果对比表明,该方法能够生成更高比例的优质四面体,增强了对扁平面体的抑制能力,同时很好地保证了边界的一致。结论 在对封闭的3维表面网格进行有限元建模时,本文算法为其提供了一种有效、可靠的途径。     

Intelligent finite element mesh generation

A knowledge-based and automatic finite element mesh generator (INTELMESH) for two-dimensional linear elasticity problems is presented. Unlike other approaches, the proposed technique incorporates the information about the object geometry as well as the boundary and loading conditions to generate an a priori finite element mesh which is more refined around the critical regions of the problem domain. INTELMESH uses a blackboard architecture expert system and the new concept of substracting to locate the critical regions in the domain and to assign priority and mesh size to them. This involves the decomposition of the original structure into substructures (or primitives) for which an initial and approximate analysis can be performed by using analytical solutions and heuristics. It then uses the concept of wave propagation to generate graded nodes in the whole domain with proper density distribution. INTELMESH is fully automatic and allows the user to define the problem domain with minimum amount of input such as object geometry and boundary and loading conditions. Once nodes have been generated for the entire domain, they are automatically connected to form well-shaped triangular elements ensuring the Delaunay property. Several examples are presented and discussed. When incorporated into and compared with the traditional approach to the adaptive finite element analysis, it is expected that the proposed approach, which starts the process with near optimal initial meshes, will be more accurate and efficient.