Efficient three‐dimensional Delaunay triangulation with automatic point creation and imposed boundary constraints

Abstract

Abstract A method is described which constructs three‐dimensional unstructured tetrahedral meshes using the Delaunay triangulation criterion. Several automatic point creation techniques will be highlighted and an algorithm will be presented which can ensure that, given an initial surface triangulation which bounds a domain, a valid boundary conforming assembly of tetrahedra will be produced. Statistics of measures of grid quality are presented for several grids. The efficiency of the proposed procedure reduces the computer time for the generation of realistic unstructured tetrahedral grids to the order of minutes on workstations of modest computational capabilities.