Maintaining tetrahedral mesh quality in response to time-dependent topological and geometrical deformation

Conference · Tue Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1998

OSTI ID:677147

Kuprat, A; George, D

When modeling deformation of geometrically complex regions, unstructured tetrahedral meshes provide the flexibility necessary to track interfaces as they change geometrically and topologically. In the class of time-dependent simulations considered in this paper, multimaterial interfaces are represented by sets of triangular facets, and motion of the interfaces is controlled by physical considerations. The motion of interior points in the conforming tetrahedral mesh (i.e., points not on interfaces) is arbitrary and may be chosen to produce good element shapes. In the context of specified boundary motion driven by physical considerations, they have found that a rather large glossary of mesh changes is required to allow the simulation to survive all the transitions of interface geometry and topology that occur during time evolution. This paper will describe mesh changes required to maintain good element quality as the geometry evolves, as well as mesh changes required to capture changes i n topology that occur when material regions collapse or pinch off. This paper will present a detailed description of mesh changes necessary for capturing the aforementioned geometrical and topological changes, as implemented in the code GRAIN3D, and will provide examples from a metallic grain growth simulation in which the normal velocity of the grain boundary is proportional to mean curvature.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., Theoretical Div., NM (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Assistant Secretary for Management and Administration, Washington, DC (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 677147
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--98-1697; CONF-980769--; ON: DE99000648
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
DEFORMATION
FLEXIBILITY
GEOMETRY
GRAIN GROWTH
SIMULATION
TOPOLOGY
VELOCITY