Mesh-based geometry
Owen, Steve J.; White, David R.
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Vol 58, Num 2, pp.375-395, July 2003
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185, U.S.A.
email: Steven J. Owen (sjowen@sandia.gov)
David R. White
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A.
Abstract
A systematic approach to building a complete geometric and topologic representation of a model given only the finite element (FE) description is proposed. The objective of the proposed system is to provide a geometry foundation for existing finite element based models so that standard mesh generation tools can be used without requiring CAD-based modelling systems such as ACIS or other proprietary commercial tools. To accomplish this, a method for extracting topology from the FE model is proposed. Topology entities including volumes, surfaces, curves and vertices are built based on user-defined boundary conditions and surface features. Curve and surface geometry is described by either linear triangular facets or G1 continuous 4th-order Bezier patches. Integration of the proposed mesh-based geometry (MBG) system into an existing mesh generation toolkit is described. Sample applications and examples of MBG are presented.
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