A straightforward structure to construct shape functions for variable p-order meshes Original Research Article

This paper describes a method for specifying variable p-order meshes based on the topological hierarchy of mesh entities defining the finite elements. A decomposition of p-version mesh entity shape functions into a product of a function defined over the mesh entity and a blending function defined over the elements that the mesh entity bounds is presented. The decomposed shape functions allow the effective construction of the shape functions and derivatives needed to construct element matrices for variable p-enrichment.