• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.659-665
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• 2010

The finite element method(FEM) is proven to be an effective approximate method of structural analysis if proper element types and meshes are chosen, and recently, the method is often applied to solve complex dynamic and nonlinear problems. A properly chosen element type and mesh yields reliable results for dynamic finite element structural analysis. However, dynamic behavior of a structure may include unpredictably large strains in some parts of the structure, and using the initial mesh throughout the duration of a dynamic analysis may include some elements to go through strains beyond the elements' reliable limits. Thus, the finite element mesh for a dynamic analysis must be dynamically adaptive, and considering the rapid process of analysis in real time, the dynamically adaptive finite element mesh generating schemes must be computationally efficient. In this paper, a computationally efficient dynamically adaptive finite element mesh generation scheme for dynamic analyses of structures is described. The concept of representative strain value is used for error estimates and the refinements of meshes use combinations of the h-method(node movement) and the r-method(element division). The shape coefficient for element mesh is used to correct overly distorted elements. The validity of the scheme is shown through a cantilever beam example under a concentrated load with varying values. The example shows reasonable accuracy and efficient computing time. Furthermore, the study shows the potential for the scheme's effective use in complex structural dynamic problems such as those under seismic or erratic wind loads.

• Biomaterials and Biomechanics in Bioengineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.71-84
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• 2016

The finite element method is wide used in simulation in the biomechanical structures, but a lack of studies concerning finite element mesh quality in biomechanics is a reality. The present study intends to analyze the importance of the mesh quality in the finite element model results from humeral structure. A sensitivity analysis of finite element models (FEM) is presented for the humeral bone and cartilage structures. The geometry of bone and cartilage was acquired from CT scan and geometry reconstructed. The study includes 54 models from same bone geometry, with different mesh densities, constructed with tetrahedral linear elements. A finite element simulation representing the glenohumeral-joint reaction force applied on the humerus during $90^{\circ}$ abduction, with external load as the critical condition. Results from the finite element models suggest a mesh with 1.5 mm, 0.8 mm and 0.6 mm as suitable mesh sizes for cortical bone, trabecular bone and humeral cartilage, respectively. Relatively to the higher minimum principal strains are located at the proximal humerus diaphysis, and its highest value is found at the trabecular bone neck. The present study indicates the minimum mesh size in the finite element analyses in humeral structure. The cortical and trabecular bone, as well as cartilage, may not be correctly represented by meshes of the same size. The strain results presented the critical regions during the $90^{\circ}$ abduction.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.189-202
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• 1996

Complex geometric shapes can be defined simply and efficiently by combining and operating various surface primitives. These primitives and their intersection curves are used in finite element mesh generation to form an easy and intuitive procedure for finite element modelling of curved surfaces. This paper proposes techniques of automatic mesh generation on surface primitives with arbitrarily shaped boundaries and control curves, which may be created by surface to surface intersection. A method of automatic mesh generation on plane, which was previously developed by the author, has been modified for application to the surface mesh generation. Owing to the mesh generation-wise differences between planes and surfaces, the surfaces should be transformed into conceptual plane so that the modified plane mesh generation method can be applied. Surface development, mapping and mesh reconstruction are the key techniques suggested in this paper. The selection of the technique to apply can be determined automatically on the basis of the developability, existence of singularity and other characteristics of the surfaces on which the mesh is to be generated. The suggested techniques were implemented into parts of mesh generation functions of the finite element software, MacTran. Their validity and practicality were manifested by the actual use of this software.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.181-199
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• 2014

Locking phenomenon is a mesh problem and can be staved off with mesh refinement. If the studier is not preferred going to the solution with increasing mesh size or the computer memory can stack over flow than using higher order plate finite element or using integration techniques is a solution for this problem. The purpose of this paper is to show the shear locking phenomenon can be avoided by increase low order finite element mesh size of the plates and to study shear locking-free analysis of thick plates using Mindlin's theory by using higher order displacement shape function and to determine the effects of various parameters such as the thickness/span ratio, mesh size on the linear responses of thick plates subjected to uniformly distributed loads. A computer program using finite element method is coded in C++ to analyze the plates clamped or simply supported along all four edges. In the analysis, 4-, 8- and 17-noded quadrilateral finite elements are used. It is concluded that 17-noded finite element converges to exact results much faster than 8-noded finite element, and that it is better to use 17-noded finite element for shear-locking free analysis of plates.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.194-201
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• 2003

An automatic quadrilateral mesh generator for large deformation finite element analysis such as metal forming simulation was developed. The NURBS interpolation method is used for modeling arbitrary 2-D free surface. This mesh generation technique is the modified paving algorithm, which is an advancing front technique with element-by-element resolving method for paving boundary intersection problem. The mesh density for higher analysis accuracy and less analysis time can be easily controlled with high-density points, maximum and minimum element size. A couple of application to large deformation finite element analysis is given as an example, which shows versatility and applicability of the proposed approach and the developed mesh generator for large deformation finite element analysis.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2006

Finite element method (FEM) provides several advantages over other numerical methods such as boundary element method, since it allows truly volumetric analysis and incorporation of realistic electrical conductivity values. Finite element mesh generation is the first requirement in such in FEM to represent the volumetric domain of interest with numerous finite elements accurately. However, conventional mesh generators and approaches offered by commercial packages do not generate meshes that are content-adaptive to the contents of given images. In this paper, we present software that has been implemented to generate content-adaptive finite element meshes (cMESHes) based on the contents of MR images. The software offers various computational tools for cMESH generation from multi-slice MR images. The software named as the Content-adaptive FE Mesh Generation Toolbox runs under the commercially available technical computation software called Matlab. The major routines in the toolbox include anisotropic filtering of MR images, feature map generation, content-adaptive node generation, Delaunay tessellation, and MRI segmentation for the head conductivity modeling. The presented tools should be useful to researchers who wish to generate efficient mesh models from a set of MR images. The toolbox is available upon request made to the Functional and Metabolic Imaging Center or Bio-imaging Laboratory at Kyung Hee University in Korea.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.57-70
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• 2002

This work presents an iterative mesh partitioning approach to improve the efficiency of parallel substructure finite element computations. The proposed approach employs an iterative strategy with a set of empirical rules derived from the results of numerical experiments on a number of different finite element meshes. The proposed approach also utilizes state-of-the-art partitioning techniques in its iterative partitioning kernel, a cost function to estimate the computational cost of each submesh, and a mechanism that adjusts element weights to redistribute elements among submeshes during iterative partitioning to partition a mesh into submeshes (or substructures) with balanced computational workloads. In addition, actual parallel finite element structural analyses on several test examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach proposed herein. The results show that the proposed approach can effectively improve the efficiency of parallel substructure finite element computations.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.83-88
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• 2019

Structural analysis remains as an essential part of any integrated civil engineering system in today's rapidly changing computing environment. Even with enormous advancements in capabilities of computers and mobile tools, enhancing computational efficiency of algorithms is necessary to meet the changing demands for quick real time response systems. The finite element method is still the most widely used method of computational structural analysis; a robust, reliable and automated finite element structural analysis module is essential in a modern integrated structural engineering system. To be a part of an automated finite element structural analysis, an efficient adaptive mesh generation scheme based on R-H refinement for the mesh and error estimates from representative strain values at Gauss points is described. A coefficient that depends on the shape of element is used to correct overly distorted elements. Two simple case studies show the validity and computational efficiency. The scheme is appropriate for nonlinear and dynamic problems in earthquake engineering which generally require a huge number of iterative computations.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.174-181
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• 1999

To obtain more accurate result in the finite element analysis for electric machinery, it is important to have a mesh being of good quality. This paper describes a new technique of mesh generation for the finite element method. When the list of points defining the region of analysis is given, an appropriate distribution of interior points is generated first. Secondly the points are connected to from the trianlges. Finally the connectivity data are used to reposition the interior points using Laplacian smoothing and mesh relaxation technique. In this paper, a mesh searching technique of Lawson which modifies the start mesh is proposed in addition to the above three steps. This algorithm is simple and produces the meshes being of good quality with high speed in comparison with the existing one.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.73-79
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a new triangular finite element mesh generation method based on simplification of high-density mesh and adaptive Level-of-Detail (LOD) methods for efficient CAE. In our method, mesh simplification is used to control the mesh properties required for FE mesh, such as the number of triangular elements, element shape quality and size while keeping the specified approximation tolerance. Adaptive LOD methods based on vertex hierarchy according to curvature and region of interest, and global LOD method preserving density distributions are also proposed in order to construct a mesh more appropriate for CAE purpose. These methods enable efficient generation of FE meshes with properties appropriate for analysis purpose from a high-density mesh. Finally, the effectiveness of our approach is shown through evaluations of the FE meshes for practical use.