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Parallel generation of meshes with cracks using binary spatial decomposition

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Abstract

This work describes a technique to generate tetrahedral meshes with cracks using parallel computers with distributed memory. This technique can be used for models without cracks as well. It employs a binary partitioning structure that uses axis-aligned planes to decompose the domain. Those decomposing planes are determined based on a refined octree that is built to estimate the amount of work necessary to generate the whole mesh, so that the amount of work in each subdomain is approximately the same. A serial advancing front technique is used in each subdomain concurrently, in such a way that the generated tetrahedra do not cross the decomposing planes. After local synchronizations, meshes are generated interfacing the subdomains. The results show that the prediction of the number of elements in each subdomain is accurate, leading to a well-balanced algorithm and to a good speed-up. Also, the meshes generated in parallel have very good quality, similar to the that of a serially generated mesh.

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Acknowledgments

The first author acknowledges the support from the Brazilian agency CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) through the fellowship granted to him (Process 2823-12-8). The third author acknowledges the support from the Brazilian agencies CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) through the Research Productivity Grant 307941/2013-2, CAPES through the grant BEX 6881-12-2 and FUNCAP (Fundação Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) through the grant CI1-0080-00064.01.00/13. All the authors acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) (http://www.tacc.utexas.edu) at The University of Texas at Austin for providing high performance computing resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil

    Markos O. Freitas, Joaquim B. Cavalcante-Neto & Creto A. Vidal

  2. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Luiz F. Martha

  3. Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

    Paul A. Wawrzynek, Bruce J. Carter & Anthony R. Ingraffea

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  1. Markos O. Freitas
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  2. Paul A. Wawrzynek
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  3. Joaquim B. Cavalcante-Neto
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  6. Luiz F. Martha
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  7. Anthony R. Ingraffea
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Correspondence to Markos O. Freitas.

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Freitas, M.O., Wawrzynek, P.A., Cavalcante-Neto, J.B. et al. Parallel generation of meshes with cracks using binary spatial decomposition. Engineering with Computers 32, 655–674 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-016-0444-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-016-0444-3

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