One of the most time consuming, and therefore costly, components of engineering analysis involves the discretization of complex geometry into many finite volumes (meshing). In many cases the tedious process of meshing geometry consumes the majority of the analysts' time. This time is generally spent decomposing the geometry into several smaller sub-regions that can be meshed using standard mapping transformations or other simple techniques. After meshing, the individual pieces are reassembled to form the original geometry.
One remedy that can alleviate much of the work associated with meshing is to produce the mesh automatically without the intermediate decomposition step and subsequent re-assembly of geometric sub-regions. Automated meshing algorithms would be a tremendous savings to U.S. industry. Industry representatives have estimated as much as 50 to 75% of the budget earmarked for finite element analysis could be redirected for other needs within their companies.
Automatic meshing research is supported by the DOE Office of Scientific Computing and DOE defense programs