9th International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Metallurgical Processes in Steelmaking - STEELSIM2021

Mesh quality is a fundamental issue with the Finite Element Method. Structured meshes are quite common: however, they usually have some problems when it comes to change rapidly the element size in the adaptive mesh. For this reason, to usage of unstructured mesh is more appropriate when the target is the creation of an adaptive mesh using quadrilateral elements. This work aims to present a Finite Element unstructured quadrilateral mesh generator based on a direct method. The algorithm starts from an initially ordered series of points (loops) discretizing the continuous edge of the computational domain to be meshed. Then the algorithm generates internal layers of elements, based on the segment connecting two consecutive nodes, thus increasing the mesh quality on the boundary, where the higher thermal, strain, stress gradients are placed. After the regular external layers are generated, the meshing procedure starts the direct decomposition of the domain, until the section meshing is completed. To enhance mesh quality, if it is necessary, a mesh smoothing is operated. After the 2D mesh of the section has been created, an extrusion along the rolling direction allows the generation of a complete 3D mesh.