Automatic step size calculation in our finite element meshing software.

A principal advantage of the Finite Element Analysis is that it delivers accurate solutions in domains of extremely complicated shapes. Quite often, boundaries of such domains represent closed sequences of linear and arc entities. Sizes of finite elements to be generated in a particular domain usually depend on the user-defined step size; the latter is normally set individually for each entity.

However, when the overall number of entities reaches several dozens or hundreds, it can be unreasonable to require the user to set a desirable step size on each and every entity. An automatic step calculation algorithm based on feature sizes becomes highly desirable.

Our company developed and implemented an efficient and highly accurate algorithm for that purpose. It is now part of our automatic quadrilateral mesh generators QUAD-GEN 3.5 and QUAD-BUILD 5.0 , which are very powerful and reliable programs, capable of generating meshes in domains with the most complicated and irregular geometries. They are available in the source code form with unlimited commercial license.

The following image isprovided to illustrate a quadrilateral mesh generated by QUAD-GEN using the automatic step calculation algorithm. All the user has to do is to define entities themselves; step sizes are then calculated by the program individually for each entity. It can be seen that step size is adequately reduced in the vicinity of short entities and increased where it is allowed by the geometrical properties of the boundary.

To learn about complete range of our products, please follow this link. If you need more information, please contact us (preferably by e-mail). We can also help with other mesh generation, computational geometry and general finite element analysis needs.

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