Finite element mesh generation

Abstract The capabilities of a geometric modeller are extended towards finite element analysis by a mesh generator which extracts all its geometric and topological information from the model. A coarse mesh is created and subsequently refined to a suitable finite element mesh, which accomodates material properties, loadcase and analysis requirements. The mesh may be optimized by adaptive refinement, ie according to estimates of the discretization errors. A survey of research and development in geometric modelling and finite element analysis is presented, then an implementation of a mesh generator for 3D curvilinear and solid objects is described in detail.