New method for graded mesh generation of quadrilateral finite elements

The well known mapping method is widely applied for mesh generation because of its efficiency, mesh quality and controllable mesh topology. One of the greatest obstacles to generating a quadrilateral mesh of high quality in an arbitrary domain by using the mapping element method, is the generation of quadrilateral parent elements on a parent plane that allows for mesh gradation in both coordinate directions. This paper presents a pattern module method to generate the graded mesh, and uses the notion and operation of the set theory to describe the method. The method requires few calculations and the resulting elements are of high quality. A number of numerical results are given to illustrate the performance of the method. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.