Recent progress in multiblock hybrid structured and unstructured mesh generation Original Research Article

One of the bottlenecks in applying numerical methods to solve engineering problems is how to efficiently build-up the computational model for a given complex geometry. Huang and Oden have successfully integrated most of existing grid generation techniques and topological concepts into one grid generation package, GAMMA2D, for the automatic generation of linear quadrilateral finite elements. The present work focuses on the development and applications of a numerical software package, HOMESH, which extends the design philosophy of GAMMA2D to integrate multiblock, structured/unstructured mesh generation techniques for the automatic generation of high-order finite elements. The latest function improvements of HOMESH include: the implementation of a two-dimensional hyperbolic grid generator, the capabilities for the generation of hybrid 3-node triangular and 4-node quadrilateral linear elements, hybrid 6-node triangular and 8-node/9-node quadrilateral quadratic elements. In addition, various sweeping methods for the three-dimensional mesh generation are incorporated in HOMESH. These newly implemented grid generation methods greatly enhance the mesh design capability. To verify the usefulness of the mesh generated by HOMESH, commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software packages are applied to test the data exchangeability.