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Motivation Meshing Background

Need a mesh to run FEA/FEM simulations

Sara McMains ME 290D

Mesh Element Types


Tetrahedral (triangular in 2D)
4 triangular faces 4 3 -edged corners Regular tetrahedron = good quality

Mesh organization
Unstructured
Elements generally tets (triangles)

Structured
Elements hexes (quads) only

Hexahedral (quadrilateral in 2D)


6 quadrilateral faces 6 3 -edged corners Right parallelpiped = good quality

Block-structured (a.k.a. semi-structured)


Elements hexes (quads)

Hybrid (Tet-hex in 3D) meshes

Unstructured Triangular Mesh

Structured Quadrilateral Mesh

Block-Structured Quad Mesh

Block-Structured Quad Mesh


Valence 3

Valence 5 Valence 3

Block-Structured Quad Mesh

Structured Mesh Advantages


Finding neighbors is fast Storage is smaller
Eliminate pointers to neighbors

Better for parallel computation


Easy to partition

Hex Mesh Advantages


Lower element count
Tets typically 4-10 times more elements

Unstructured Mesh Advantages


Lower element count (?)

Directional sizing w/out loss of accuracy


Boundary layer fluid flow calculations on thin hexes vs. thin tets

Unstructured Mesh Advantages


Lower element count
5X difference in LA basin example Simpler multi-scale resolution match

Easier to match complex geometry shape Automated generation

Conformal Meshes
Mesh is conformal iff:
Completely and exactly covers the domain Intersection of any two elts in mesh is either:
Empty set Single point An entire edge of both An entire face of both

Conformal Meshes
Some definitions also require convex quad elements
non-conformal quad mesh

Solvers can often still run on non-conformal meshes, but bigger errors

non-conformal quad mesh

Advancing Front Mesh Generation


Given mesh of boundary, generate entire mesh
May need to conform to fixed surface mesh Automated or semi-automated meshing of lower dimensions easier Nodes near boundary often most important

Advancing Front Mesh Generation


Given mesh of boundary, generate entire mesh
May need to conform to fixed surface mesh Automated or semi-automated meshing of lower dimensions easier Nodes near boundary often most important

Hybrid mesh

Whisker Weaving Uses Duality


Quad mesh (dashed) and its dual (solid)

Unlike VD-DT duality, only derive the topology (not geometry) in the dual space

Spatial Twist Continuum (STC)


Variant of hex mesh dual
Vertices outside solid dealt with differently STC (dual space) 2-cell Edge Chord

2D STC
Quad mesh (primal space) Node Edge Row of quads Quad

Connect edges opposite on quad

Centroid
Intersection of 2 chords

edge centroid 2-cell

2D Example

3D Mesh Duality
Spatial Twist Continuum is hex mesh dual STC is an arrangement of intersecting sheets

Dashed mesh and its dual

Chord on dual shown in bold STC Hex mesh

Another 3D example

STC Terminology
Vertex Sheet

Chord

Whisker

STC

Hex mesh

3D STC
STC (dual space) Sheet Chord
Intersection of 2 sheets

2D Surface Mesh STC


STC Arrangement of intersecting loops Intersection of 2 loops Quad Surface Mesh Quad surface mesh Quad face

Hex mesh (primal space) Layer of hexes Column of hexes Quad face Hex

Whisker
Dangling edge of chord

Vertex
Intersection of 3 sheets

2D Loop Example

Surface Loops Example

Dashed mesh and its dual

Loop on dual shown in bold

Surface Loops - 3D Relationship


Loops on the surface correspond to intersections of 3D STC sheets with the surface

Acknowledgements
Jonathan Shewchuk
Los Angeles basin meshes

CRC Handbook of Grid Generation The Spatial Twist Continuum (Murdoch, Benzley, Blacker, Mitchell)

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