6-node triangular mesh

I need to mesh a surface with (curved) 6-node triangular elements to set up a non-linear FEA efficiently. I was wondering if anyone is aware of an existing implementation in one of the many meshing tools to accomplish such a meshing?

If not, I was thinking to approximate the setup by creating a 3 node-triangular mesh, and adding in the middle nodes (node 2, for example) by taking the middle of the line between nodes 1 and 3. However, I would much rather map the surface more accurately.

I hope to input a surface, and export vertices, faces and normals.

Any ideas for an approach would be most welcome!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Petras Vestartas on August 7, 2017 at 2:46am

Probably you want something like ngon meshing.

I would suggest to mesh surface with triangles. Get faces outlines. Get middle points of polyline. Project them surface and add to polyline. From this you can create ngon Mesh or half edge mesh.

Permalink Reply by Tim Chen on August 7, 2017 at 5:48pm

Following Petras' reply. To get the same accuracy, just mesh it with half the edge length, then merge neighboring triangles.

Why not mesh it with the mesher included with the FEA package? I don't know if the exported vertices would have the correct nodal numbering in the local coordinate.

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