Mesh generation for aerospace applications

In recent years there has been much research activity in the field of compressible flow simulation for aerodynamic applications. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the advances in the numerical solution of the Full Potential and Euler equations made, in principle, the inviscid flow simulation around complex aerodynamic shapes possible. At this stage much attention was focused on methods capable of generating meshes on which such calculations could be performed. In this paper an overview is presented of some techniques which have been developed to generate meshes for aerospace applications. Structured mesh generation techniques are discussed and their application to complicated shapes utilising the multiblock approach is highlighted. Unstructured mesh generation methods are also discussed with particular emphasis given to the Delaunay triangulation method. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the structured and unstructured approaches are discussed and new work is presented which attempts to utilise both these approaches in an efficient and flexible manner. An erratum to this article is available at .