Title: Linear-spline element for meshing of irregular boundaries

Authors: Logah Perumal; Thet Thet Mon

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University, Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, Bukit Beruang, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia ' Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University, Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, Bukit Beruang, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia

Abstract: From literature, it can be seen that many types of elements have been formulated to facilitate analysis of engineering tasks. In case of boundary mesh generation, triangular elements are found to be compatible in meshing irregular boundaries compared to other elements. One of disadvantages of triangular element in meshing of irregular boundaries is that large numbers of elements are required to represent irregular surface accurately and this leads to more computational time. Thus, in this work, a new element is proposed for boundary meshing of irregular geometries to overcome existing shortages mentioned above. A new element developed in this work is given the name linear-spline element, and it is developed to facilitate boundary meshing and at the same time it ensures accuracy in representing domain's geometry. This paper covers geometry and interpolation functions development for the proposed element. Conceptual application of this new element is also included.

Keywords: finite elements; linear-spline elements; shape functions; boundary meshing; irregular boundaries; boundary mesh generation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCSE.2013.057300

International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, 2013 Vol.8 No.4, pp.376 - 382

Received: 23 Jan 2012
Accepted: 22 Jul 2012
Published online: 27 Dec 2013 *

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