Converting an Unstructured Quadrilateral/Hexahedral Mesh to a Rational T-spline

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method for converting any unstructured quadrilateral or hexahedral mesh to a generalized T-spline surface or solid T-spline, based on the rational T-spline basis functions. Our conversion algorithm consists of two stages: the topology stage and the geometry stage. In the topology stage, the input quadrilateral or hexahedral mesh is taken as the initial T-mesh. To construct a gap-free T-spline, templates are designed for each type of node and applied to elements in the input mesh. In the geometry stage, an efficient surface fitting technique is developed to improve the surface accuracy with sharp feature preservation. The constructed T-spline surface and solid T-spline interpolate every boundary node in the input mesh, with C2- continuity everywhere except the local region around irregular nodes. Finally, a B'ezier extraction technique is developed and linear independence of the constructed T-splines is studied to facilitate T-spline based isogeometric analysis.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2011
Accession Number
ADA555343

Entities

People

  • Guoliang Xu
  • Thomas J.R. Hughes
  • Wenyan Wang
  • Yongjie Zhang

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Algorithms
  • Assembly
  • Boundaries
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Computer-Aided Manufacturing
  • Continuity
  • Engineering
  • Extraction
  • Finite Element Analysis
  • Geometry
  • Manufacturing
  • Mathematics
  • Orientation (Direction)
  • Standards
  • Template Patterns
  • Topology

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)