New Method for Graded Mesh Generation of All Hexahedral Finite Elements

Numerical Grid Generation in Computational Field Simulations, Ed. M. Cross., B. K. Soni, J. F. Thompson, J. Hauser, P. R. Eiseman, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference, held at the University of Greenwich, pp.1031-1038, July 1998

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis of Industrial Equipment,
Dalian University of Technology,
Dalian 116023, P. R. China

Abstract
In the preparation of finite element meshes, graded meshes generation is important in order to construct optimal meshes. The well known mapping method is widely applied by almost all commercial mesh generators because of its efficiency, mesh quality and controllable mesh topology. One of the greatest obstacle to apply the mapping method and generate a graded all hexahedral mesh of high quality in an arbitrarily three- dimensional domain is the generation of hexahedral parent elements on a superelement that allows for gradations in three coordinate directions.

This paper presents a pattern module's method to generate the graded mesh and thus improves the mapping method. The method requires few calculations and the result elements are of high quality. This new algorithm is described in detail and its efficiency is illustrated with appropriate examples.