Automatic Mesh Generation with Tetrahedron Elements

International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Wiley, Vol 18, pp.273-289, 1982

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Knorr-Bremse GmbH, Munchen, W. Germany

Abstract
To reduce the manual work involved in the application of the FEM in practice, preprocessors can be applied for the construction of network structures, which are complicated in generation strategy and do not form any optimum discrete structure. The time necessary for generation can be minimized even more by the application of only one element type within the whole network structure. A technique far the automatic generation of 3D-network structures with tetrahedron elements is presented in this paper. In this proposed technique, the nodal points of the network structure must be defined manually before the generation procedure, since a random positioning of points is usually undesirable for FEM calculation. The nodal points are connected by a program to a network structure consisting of tetrahedron elements which have optimum form for the numerical computation of the element matrices. After the generation, the element sides forming any part of the boundary surface of the network structure can be automatically identified. If necessary, the network structure can be automatically refined.