Automatic hybrid mesh generation for the boundary face method

A new hybrid mesh generation method is proposed and applied to generate mesh for three-dimensional solids with open-ended tubular holes. Regions around the tubular holes are represented by hexahedral elements, and tetrahedral elements tessellate the rest of the domain. The procedure consists of three steps. Firstly, surfaces of tubular holes are recognized and discretized, and then the hexahedral mesh is generated by a sweep method. Finally, the Delaunay tetrahedral mesh generation method coupled with the advancing front method is applied to generate tetrahedral mesh. By the proposed method, high-quality hybrid mesh for solids with small tubular holes can be automatically created. And the number of the obtained elements is far less than the traditional tetrahedral mesh. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of our method.