1. Meshing Options for Irregular Shapes Brian Prince Updated Dec 19, 2006

2. How should we Mesh this?  When creating this type of geometry, make sure all your lines correspond to the same keypoints, otherwise you will not be able to create the area!

3. Free Mesh Examples

4. This Free Mesh has the area divided into smaller areas and with a refined mesh size, however, many of the elements are still irregularly shaped.

5. Mapped Meshing TTTThere are two ways to complete a mapped mesh. TTTThe mesh may be mapped from lines and cannot have more than 4 sides TTTThe area may be meshed by corners and cannot have more than 5 sides

6. Example 1  We first do a mapped mesh on the areas that are defined by four lines  We will then apply transition meshes for the center areas.

7. Example 1

8. Example 2  We use the corners of the Geometry to our advantage to be able to map mesh the entire geometry.

9. Example 2

10. While this mesh is much more uniform throughout, we still have some oddly shaped elements at the corner of our arcs. Example 2

11. Example 3  In this example, we perform a Boolean operation on the lines defining our areas. We “glue” the lines together to able to create larger areas we can then map mesh.

12. Example 3

13. Conclusion  For Irregular Shapes, it is not always a good idea to use a free mesh  A mapped mesh can be achieved by properly dividing the geometry into areas that can be mapped  When choosing the areas, remember the critical points and stress risers and make sure to try and achieve the best shaped elements at these points