All-hexahedral element meshing: Generation of the dual mesh by recurrent subdivision

Computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering, Elsevier, Vol 182, pp.371-378, 2000

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Corresponding author. Present address: IV WCCM Chairman, Edifcio C-l, Campus Nord-UPC, E-08034 Barcelona, Spain.
Tel.: +54-42-556673; fax: +54-42-550944.
E-mail addresses: ncalvo@arcride.edu.ar (N.A. Calvo), rnsergio@arcride.edu.ar (S.R. Idelsohn).

Abstract
The domain geometry is defined by means of a closed all-quadrilateral mesh. The outer mesh imposes very strong restrictions on the possible connectivities between the inner hexahedral elements. Following the guidelines of the outer topology, the inner one is almost entirely defined. Several ways may be decided for certain configurations, some of them requiring special considerations in order to achieve a valid FEM mesh. The process is entirely performed by constructing the (graph theoretical) dual of the hexahedral mesh, this means no metric information is handled until the final (positioning and smoothing) steps. The essential steps of this scheme are de- scribed by means of examples.