Global Remeshing of Orphan Surface Mesh with Local Control

This paper describes a series of strategies and algorithms used to generate a new two-dimensional mesh on an existing orphan element model. The remeshing strategy is founded on the concept of a Mesh Partitioner (MP) which creates a tessellated surface representation from the initial Orphan Element Patch (OEP). The resultant mesher-native surface patch called Face-on-Mesh (FOM) is first torn away from the orphan element model and remeshed with a variety of two-dimensional meshers with its boundary constrained with nodes from the parent orphan model. The new mesh is finally stitched back to the original orphan mesh. Sophisticated local mesh controls are exercised by means of an automated, controlled loop-paving algorithm which works around circular cutouts and patch interior points representing spot-welds. Results on various automotive parts describe how this tool is employed to locally refine meshes whose owning geometry is lost.