Building Geometry Simplification for Improving Mesh Quality of Numerical Analysis Model

Gwanyong Park,Minhyung Lee,Changho Choi,Changmin Kim

doi:10.3390/app10165425

Gwanyong Park, Minhyung Lee + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app10165425

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Journal: Applied sciences	Publication Date: Aug 5, 2020
Citations: 8	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Green Technology Center, Kwangwoon University

Abstract

Numerical analysis, especially the finite volume method (FVM), is one of the primary approaches employed when evaluating a building environment. A complicated geometry can degrade the mesh quality, leading to numerical diffusions and errors. Thus, this study develops and evaluates an automatic building geometry simplification method based on integrating similar surfaces for the geometry of an indoor space. A regression model showed that the complexity of the simplified geometry and its similarity to the original geometry decreased linearly with the threshold of the method. The mesh quality was significantly improved by the simplification. In particular, the maximum skewness decreased exponentially with the threshold of the method. It is expected that the simplification method and regression model presented in this study can be used to quantitatively control the mesh quality.

Highlights

The finite volume method (FVM) is commonly used to perform numerical analysis in many fields, including fluid dynamics, owing to its advantages in flux calculations in terms of precision [1]
This study proposed an automatic simplification methodology of building geometries to improve the accuracy and stability of the FVM model, and analyzed changes in geometry and mesh quality by simplification
The geometry simplification method proposed in this study integrates similar faces through angle and a distance threshold, and removes insignificant faces from the surfaces composing the building model

Summary

Introduction

The finite volume method (FVM) is commonly used to perform numerical analysis in many fields, including fluid dynamics, owing to its advantages in flux calculations in terms of precision [1]. FVM is used for environmental analyses using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), fire safety analysis [2], and some cases of heat, air, and moisture (HAM) analysis [3,4]. FVM is a method that discretizes and analyzes partial differential equations in the form of algebraic equations. For the computation of algebraic equations, there is a need to divide the target model into finite volumes (“cells”), i.e., to design the mesh. During the mesh design process, a discretization error can occur, and the size of the error is affected by the geometry of the finite volume

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