On the Use of Finite Elements in gOcad

Luiz Fernando Martha and Joao Luiz Campos and Joaquim Cavalcante Neto. ( 2001 )
in: 21st gOcad Meeting, ASGA

Abstract

This work describes the implementation of a plug-in that adds finite element pre- and post-processing capabilities to gOcad. The gFEM plug-in implements an algorithm for generating unstructured tetrahedral finite element meshes in arbitrarily shaped three-dimensional regions. This meshing algorithm incorporates aspects of well-known meshing procedures, but includes some original steps. It uses an advancing front technique that generates good shape quality elements, along with an octree to develop local guidelines for the size of generated elements. The advancing front technique is based on a standard procedure found in the literature with two additional steps to ensure valid volume mesh generation for virtually any domain. The first additional step is related to the generation of elements only considering the topology of the current front and the second additional step is a backtracking procedure with face deletion, to ensure that a mesh can be generated even when problems happen during the advance of the front. To improve mesh quality (as far as element shape is concerned), an a posteriori local mesh improvement procedure is used. A description of the new object classes introduced in gOcad data structure for the implementation of the finite element meshing and result visualization capabilities is presented.

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    BibTeX Reference

    @inproceedings{MarthaRM2001,
     abstract = { This work describes the implementation of a plug-in that adds finite element pre- and post-processing capabilities to gOcad. The gFEM plug-in implements an algorithm for generating unstructured tetrahedral finite element meshes in arbitrarily shaped three-dimensional regions. This meshing algorithm incorporates aspects of well-known meshing procedures, but includes some original steps. It uses an advancing front technique that generates good shape quality elements, along with an octree to develop local guidelines for the size of generated elements. The advancing front technique is based on a standard procedure found in the literature with two additional steps to ensure valid volume mesh generation for virtually any domain. The first additional step is related to the generation of elements only considering the topology of the current front and the second additional step is a backtracking procedure with face deletion, to ensure that a mesh can be generated even when problems happen during the advance of the front. To improve mesh quality (as far as element shape is concerned), an a posteriori local mesh improvement procedure is used. A description of the new object classes introduced in gOcad data structure for the implementation of the finite element meshing and result visualization capabilities is presented. },
     author = { Martha, Luiz Fernando AND Campos, Joao Luiz AND Cavalcante Neto, Joaquim },
     booktitle = { 21st gOcad Meeting },
     month = { "june" },
     publisher = { ASGA },
     title = { On the Use of Finite Elements in gOcad },
     year = { 2001 }
    }