Repairing unstructured triangular mesh intersections

Abstract

SUMMARYComputational analysis and design has become a fundamental part of product research, development, and manufacturing in aerospace, automotive, and other industries. In general, the success of the specific application depends heavily on the accuracy and consistency of the computational model used. The aim of this work is to reduce the time needed to prepare geometry for volume grid generation. This will be accomplished by developing tools that semi‐automatically repair discrete data. Providing another level of automation to the process of repairing large, complex problems in discrete data will significantly accelerate the grid generation process. The developed algorithms are meant to offer a semi‐automated solution to a complicated geometrical problem — specifically discrete mesh intersection.The intersection‐repair strategy presented here focuses on repairing the intersection in‐place as opposed to rediscretizing the intersecting geometries. Combining robust, efficient methods of detecting intersections and then repairing intersecting geometries in‐place produces a significant improvement over techniques used in current literature. The result of this intersection process is a nonintersecting geometry that is free of duplicate and degenerate geometry. Results are presented showing the accuracy and consistency of the intersection repair tool. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.