A quality and efficient tetrahedral mesh generation method

Abstract

A method of unstructured tetrahedral mesh generation for general three-dimensional domain of arbitrary shape is presented. The method consists of two steps. First, generating the boundary tetrahedral mesh by the classic Delaunay method, then, using the advancing front method to create internal points and inserting them into the mesh by the Delaunay kernel procedure. The algorithm combines the advantages of the high point placement quality of the advancing front method and the high efficiency and convergence guaranty of the Delaunay algorithm. To get better efficiency, a new front identification and field point generation method is proposed and applied. Several examples have demonstrated the computational efficiency of our method and the high quality of meshes that generated within a reasonable time limit.

Keywords:

• Tetrahedral mesh generation
• Delaunay method
• advancing front method

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C Huang

Cheng Huang received his BE degree from the Hubei University of Automotive Technology, China, in 2009. He is currently working toward his PhD degree at the College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, China. His research activities are concerned with three-dimensional mesh generation method for boundary face method.

J Zhang

Jianming Zhang received his PhD degree in engineering mechanics from Tsinghua University, China, in 2002. He then started postdoctoral research at Shinshu University, in Japan, with Prof Masataka Tanaka. He became a JSPS fellow in 2005, and the research was funded until he joined the Hunan University, in China, in 2007. Since 2007, he has been employed as a professor in the College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, China. He has been engaged in research of the boundary integral equation method and its applications in engineering problems.

L Liu

Luping Liu has been employed as a professor-level senior engineer in Hydrochina Zhongnan Engineering Corporation. He has been engaged in the work of hydropower engineering. His research has been chiefly concerned with the design of dams and schemes for temperature management during the construction of dams.

G Li

Guangyao Li received his PhD. degree in computational mechanics from Hohai University in China. He has been employed as a professor in the College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, China, since 1996. His research interests include numerical methods in mechanical simulation and their engineering applications.