AUTOMATING NODE AND ELEMENT ASSIGNMENTS ON CONFORMING 4-SIDED SECTIONS DEFINING A DOMAIN FOR MAPPING QUADRILATERAL ELEMENTS

Many commercial finite element pre-processors use mapping methods whic h generate quadrilateral elements in four-sided sections which define an analysis domain. Sections share a side (or edge) with at most one a dditional section. This defines a conforming block-structured grid. Th e manual effort required to assign nodes to each edge makes this a tim e-consuming, error-prone process. This paper describes a technique for automating the assignment of nodes on the conforming boundaries of fo ur-sided sections which define a domain. The input to the method inclu des a grid request and the topology of the domain as defined by the se ctions and edges. The grid specifies the desired number of elements to fill the domain and the type of mapping rule to be applied to the top ology. Examples are shown in two dimensions, but the technique could b e extended to three dimensions. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Lt d