Automatic local refinement for irregular rectangular meshes

The use of local mesh refinements for the generation of meshes for the finite element or finite difference methods is studied. A class of rectangular meshes which admit restricted local refinements, referred to as irregular rectangular meshes, is introduced and its representation discussed. Properties of algorithms for mesh refinements are discussed from the viewpoints of termination with a mesh in the specified class, memory utilization, symmetry and fragmentation of the mesh.