Nonlinear hyperelasticity-based mesh optimisation

Abstract

In this work, various aspects of PDE-based mesh optimisation are treated. Different existing methods are presented, with the focus on a class of nonlinear mesh quality functionals that can guarantee the orientation preserving property. This class is extended from simplex to hypercube meshes in 2d and 3d. The robustness of the resulting mesh optimisation method allows the incorporation of unilateral boundary conditions of place and r-adaptivity with direct control over the resulting cell sizes. Also, alignment to (implicit) surfaces is possible, but in all cases, the resulting functional is hard to treat analytically and numerically. Using theoretical results from mathematical elasticity for hyperelastic materials, the existence and non-uniqueness of minimisers can be established. This carries over to the discrete case, for the solution of which tools from nonlinear optimisation are used. Because of the considerable numerical effort, a class of linear preconditioners is developed that helps to speed up the solution process.