Generation of High-Quality Unstructured Grids for Computational Field Simulation

5th International Conference on Grid Generation in Computational Field Simulations, Mississippi State University, April 1996

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

NSF Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation. Mechanical Engineering Department Mississippi State University, USA. e- mail: marcum@erc.msstate.edu

Abstract
A procedure is presented for efficient generation of high-quality two- and three-dimensional unstructured grids The procedure uses an iterative point creation and insertion scheme wherein points are created using either advancing-front, point or normal point placement. Initially,-the connectivity for these generated points is obtained by direct subdivision, without regard to connectivity quality. The connectivity is then improved by iteratively using local reconnection subject to a quality criterion. A min-max type (minimize the maximum angle) criterion is used. The overall procedure is applied repetitively until a complete field grid is generated. Field point distribution is controlled by a point distribution function based on the boundary point spacing. This function is propagated through the field either by interpolation or by a specified growth normal to the boundaries. While the overall procedure was originally developed primarily for computational fluid dynamics applications in aerospace, it is also directly applicable to other disciplines of computational field simulation. Results are presented which demonstrate that high-quality unstructured grids suitable for a variety of applications can be efficiently generated about geometrically complex configurations.