International Business Machines Corporation

James M Ruppert

Siavash N Meshkat

A method for producing a set of points for a mesh of finite elements for a body to be analyzed, the body exhibiting boundaries and faces. The method comprises the steps of: producing an initial mesh of elements for the body, each element having a plurality of vertices and edges; for each vertex in a first subset of the vertices, finding points of intersection (POI) between a sphere of radius R, centered at a vertex being considered, and the boundaries and edges; determining if a found POI is either on or within the boundaries of the body and exhibits more than a minimum clearance distance from the boundaries, and vertices, any such POI being classified as a selected POI; inserting a selected POI in the initial mesh; and repeating the aforementioned steps for all POI's in the first subset and then proceeding to succeeding subsets of vertices until all POI's in all subsets have been considered.

Point placement method for use in a three-dimensional automatic mesh

A method is described for producing a mesh of finite elements that are entirely within a body to be analyzed, the body exhibiting edges and surfaces. The method comprises the steps of: producing an initial mesh of elements for the body, each element having a plurality of vertices and edges; finding any body edge segment which is not coincident with a finite element edge and adding a vertex on that segment, the added vertex positioned to minimize the number new vertex points needed on the body edge segment. Additional finite elements are then created by connecting the new vertex to adjacent close vertices. A finite element is now identified which has both an edge coincident with an edge segment of the body and another edge segment that passes through a face of the body. A new vertex is placed on the body face in the vicinity of an intersection of the intersecting element edge so as to minimize the number of added required vertices, and the method then creates additional finite elements by connecting the added vertex to adjacent close vertices.

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Berkeley, CA, United States of America

James M Ruppert