Hybrid Grid Generation Method for Complex Geometries

Abstract

A hybrid mesh generation method is described to discretize complex geometries. The idea behind this hybrid method is to combine the orthogonality and directionality of a structured grid, the efficiency and simplicity of a Cartesian grid, and the flexibility and ease of an unstructured grid in an attempt to develop an automatic, robust, and fast hybrid mesh generation method for configurations of engineering interest. A semistructured quadrilateral grid is first generated on the wetted surfaces. A background Cartesian grid, covering the domain of interest, is then constructed using a Quadtree-based Cartesian Method. Those Cartesian cells overlapping with the semistructured grids or locating outside of computational domain are then removed using an Alternating Digital Tree method. Finally, an unstructured grid generation method is used to generate unstructured triangular cells to fill all empty regions in the domain as a result of the trimming process. The automatic placement of sources at the geometrical irregularities is developed to render these regions isotropic, thus effectively overcoming the difficulty of generating highly stretched good-quality elements in these regions. The self-dividing of the exposed semistructured elements with high aspect ratio and the adaptation of the background mesh using the cell size information from the exposed semistructured elements for generating Cartesian cells are introduced to improve the quality of unstructured triangular elements and guarantee the success of the unstructured grid generation in the void regions. The developed hybrid grid generation method is used to generate a hybrid grid for a number of test cases, demonstrating its ability and robustness to mesh complex configurations.