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Graded tetrahedral finite element meshes
Author(s) -
Field David A.,
Smith Warren D.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.421
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1097-0207
pISSN - 0029-5981
DOI - 10.1002/nme.1620310302
Subject(s) - delaunay triangulation , tetrahedron , finite element method , octree , polygon mesh , triangulation , geometry , bowyer–watson algorithm , mathematics , algorithm , structural engineering , engineering
Abstract Vertices in the body centred cubic (bcc) lattice are used to create a tetrahedral spatial decomposition. With this spatial decomposition an octree approach is combined with Delaunay triangulations to decompose solids into tetrahedral finite element meshes. Solids must have their surfaces triangulated and the vertices in the triangulation are finite element nodes. Local densities of interior tetrahedra are controlled by the densities of surface triangles. Accuracy of the decomposition into finite elements depends on the accuracy of the surface triangulation which can be constructed with state of the art computer aided design systems.