Distortion and quality measures for validating and generating high-order tetrahedral meshes

A procedure to quantify the distortion (quality) of a high-order mesh composed of curved tetrahedral elements is presented. The proposed technique has two main applications. First, it can be used to check the validity and quality of a high-order tetrahedral mesh. Second, it allows the generation of curved meshes composed of valid and high-quality high-order tetrahedral elements. To this end, we describe a method to smooth and untangle high-order tetrahedral meshes simultaneously by minimizing the proposed mesh distortion. Moreover, we present a -continuation procedure to improve the initial configuration of a high-order mesh for the optimization process. Finally, we present several results to illustrate the two main applications of the proposed technique.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Efficient Computation of the Extrema of Algebraic Quality Measures for Curvilinear Finite Elements

The development of high-order computational methods for solving partial differential equations on unstructured grids has been underway for many years. Such methods critically depend on the availability of high-quality curvilinear meshes, as one bad element can degrade the solution in the whole domain. The usual way of generating curved meshes is to first generate a (high-quality) straight-sided mesh. Then, mesh entities that are classified on the boundaries of the domain are curved. This operation introduces a "shape-distortion" that should be controlled. Quality measures allow to quantify to which point an element is well-shaped. They also provide tools to improve the quality of meshes through optimization. In this work we propose an efficient method to compute several quality measures for curved elements, based on the Jacobian of the mapping between the straight-sided elements and the curved ones. Contrary to the approach presented in "A. Gargallo-Peiró, X. Roca, J. Peraire, and J. Sarrate. Distortion and quality measures for validating and generating high-order tetrahedral meshes. Engineering with Computers, pages 1–15, 2014.", which relies on an L2-norm over the elements, we compute the actual minimum and maximum of the local quality measure for each element. The method is an extension of previous works on the validity of those elements (A. Johnen et al., 2013). The key feature is that we can adaptively expand functions based on the Jacobian matrix and its determinant in terms of Bézier functions. Bézier functions have both properties of boundedness and positivity, which allow sharp computation of minimum or maximum of the interpolated functions

Generation of curved high-order meshes with optimal quality and geometric accuracy

We present a novel methodology to generate curved high-order meshes featuring optimal mesh quality and geometric accuracy. The proposed technique combines a distortion measure and a geometric L2-disparity measure into a single objective function. While the element distortion term takes into account the mesh quality, the L2-disparity term takes into account the geometric error introduced by the mesh approximation to the target geometry. The proposed technique has several advantages. First, we are not restricted to interpolative meshes and therefore, the resulting mesh approximates the target domain in a non-interpolative way, further increasing the geometric accuracy. Second, we are able to generate a series of meshes that converge to the actual geometry with expected rate while obtaining high-quality elements. Third, we show that the proposed technique is robust enough to handle real-case geometries that contain gaps between adjacent entities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

On curving high-order hexahedral meshes

We present a new definition of distortion and quality measures for high-order hexahedral (quadrilateral) elements. This definition leads to two direct applications. First, it can be used to check the validity and quality of a high-order hexahedral (quadrilateral) mesh. Second, it allows the generation of high-order curved meshes composed of valid and high-quality hexahedral (quadrilateral) elements. We describe a method to simultaneously smooth and untangle high-order hexahedral (quadrilateral) meshes by minimizing the proposed mesh distortion. Finally, we analyze the behavior of the proposed distortion measure and we present several results to illustrate the benefits of the mesh generation framework.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Mesh generation, sizing and convergence for onshore and offshore wind farm Atmospheric Boundary Layer flow simulation with actuator discs

A new mesh generation process for wind farm modeling is presented together with a mesh convergence and sizing analysis for wind farm flow simulations. The generated meshes are tailored to simulate Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) flows on complex terrains modeling the wind turbines as actuator discs. The wind farm mesher is fully automatic and, given the topography and the turbine characteristics (location, diameter and hub height), it generates a hybrid mesh conformal with the actuator discs and refined upwind and downstream. Moreover, it presents smooth element size transitions across scales and avoids extending high-resolution areas to all the domain. We take advantage of our automatic and robust mesher to study the mesh convergence of our RANS solver with linear elements, obtaining quadratic mesh convergence for a quantity of interest in all the tested cases. In addition, we quantify the mesh resolution at the terrain surface and at the actuator discs required to achieve a given numerical error in simulations in onshore and offshore frameworks. Finally, we present the generated meshes and the simulation results for an offshore and an onshore wind farm. We analyze in detail one particular wind direction for both cases, and for the onshore wind farm we use our automatic framework to estimate the yearly production of energy and measuring the error against the actual produced one.This work has been partially funded by the EU H2020Energy oriented Center of Excellence (EoCoE) for computer applications, the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA) and the High Performance Computing for Energy (HPC4E) projects. We thank Iberdrola Renovables for their collaboration and for providing wind farm data to validate the developed techniques.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Generation of Curved High-order Meshes with Optimal Quality and Geometric Accuracy

We present a novel methodology to generate curved high-order meshes featuring optimal mesh quality and geometric accuracy. The proposed technique combines a distortion measure and a geometric Full-size image (<1 K)-disparity measure into a single objective function. While the element distortion term takes into account the mesh quality, the Full-size image (<1 K)-disparity term takes into account the geometric error introduced by the mesh approximation to the target geometry. The proposed technique has several advantages. First, we are not restricted to interpolative meshes and therefore, the resulting mesh approximates the target domain in a non-interpolative way, further increasing the geometric accuracy. Second, we are able to generate a series of meshes that converge to the actual geometry with expected rate while obtaining high-quality elements. Third, we show that the proposed technique is robust enough to handle real-case geometries that contain gaps between adjacent entities.This research was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under grand contract CTM2014-55014-C3-3-R, and by the Government of Catalonia under grand contract 2014-SGR-1471. The work of the last author was supported by the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (HiPerMeGaFlows project).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Spline parameterization method for 2D and 3D geometries based on T-mesh optimization

[EN]We present a method to obtain high quality spline parameterization of 2D and 3D geometries for their use in isogeometric analysis. As input data, the proposed method demands a boundary representation of the domain, and it constructs automatically a spline transformation between the physical and parametric domains. Parameterization of the interior of the object is obtained by deforming isomorphically an adapted parametric T-mesh onto the physical domain by applying a T-mesh untangling and smoothing procedure, which is the key of the method. Mesh optimization is based on the mean ratio shape quality measure. The spline representation of the geometry is calculated by imposing interpolation conditions using the data provided by one-to-one correspondence between the meshes of the parametric and physical domains. We give a detailed description of the proposed technique and show some examples. Also, we present some examples of the application of isogeometric analysis in geometries parameterized with our method.Secretaría de Estado de Universidades e Investigación del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España y fondos FEDER; Programa de FPU 12/00202 del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; Programa de FPI propio de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canari

Defining an2-disparity measure to check and improve the geometric accuracy of noninterpolating curved high-order meshes

We define an2-disparity measure between curved high-order meshes and parameterized manifolds in terms of an2norm. The main application of the proposed definition is to measure and improve the distance between a curved high-order mesh and a target parameterized curve or surface. The approach allows considering meshes with the nodes on top of the curve or surface (interpolative), or floating freely in the physical space (non-interpolative). To compute the disparity measure, the average of the squared point-wise differences is minimized in terms of the nodal coordinates of an auxiliary parametric high-order mesh. To improve the accuracy of approximating the target manifold with a noninterpolating curved high-order mesh, we minimize the square of the disparity measure expressed both in terms of the nodal coordinates of the physical and parametric curved high-order meshes. The proposed objective functions are continuously differentiable and thus, we are able to use minimization algorithms that require the first or the second derivatives of the objective function. Finally, we present several examples that show that the proposed methodology generates high-order approximations of the target manifold with optimal convergence rates for the geometric accuracy even when non-uniform parameterizations of the manifolds are prescribed. Accordingly, we can generate coarse curved high-order meshes significantly more accurate than finer low-order meshes that feature the same resolution.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A unified approach for a posteriori high-order curved mesh generation using solid mechanics

The paper presents a unified approach for the a posteriori generation of arbitrary high-order curvilinear meshes via a solid mechanics analogy. The approach encompasses a variety of methodologies, ranging from the popular incremental linear elastic approach to very sophisticated non-linear elasticity. In addition, an intermediate consistent incrementally linearised approach is also presented and applied for the first time in this context. Utilising a consistent derivation from energy principles, a theoretical comparison of the various approaches is presented which enables a detailed discussion regarding the material characterisation (calibration) employed for the different solid mechanics formulations. Five independent quality measures are proposed and their relations with existing quality indicators, used in the context of a posteriori mesh generation, are discussed. Finally, a comprehensive range of numerical examples, both in two and three dimensions, including challenging geometries of interest to the solids, fluids and electromagnetics communities, are shown in order to illustrate and thoroughly compare the performance of the different methodologies. This comparison considers the influence of material parameters and number of load increments on the quality of the generated high-order mesh, overall computational cost and, crucially, the approximation properties of the resulting mesh when considering an isoparametric finite element formulation