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Automatic Blocking of Shapes Using Evolutionary Algorithm

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27th International Meshing Roundtable (IMR 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering ((LNCSE,volume 127))

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Abstract

This work focuses on the use of evolutionary algorithm to perform automatic blocking of a 2D manifold. The goal of such a blocking process is to completely partition a 2D region into a set of conforming and non-intersecting quadrilaterals to facilitate the generation of an all-quadrilateral, or more preferably an ideal quadrilateral mesh configuration covering the closed 2D region. However, depending on the input shape, the optimal blocking strategy is often unclear and can be very user-dependent. In this work, a novel approach based on evolutionary algorithm is adapted to search for a potential set of such ideal configurations. Based on a selection within a set of candidate vertices from a pre-computed pool, blocking configurations can be derived and ranked based on the collective quality of its blocks. The quality of a block is computed based on objective functions relating to its interior angles and opposite length ratios. Using multi-dimensional ranking criteria, inferior solutions can be slowly filtered away with each successive generation. Based on observations on a range of turbomachinery test cases, it is possible to derive and improve near-optimal blocking configurations by utilizing a large number of generations. This work has the potential to be extensible to 3D shapes as well.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Roll-Royce plc for their support and permission to publish the work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. A*STAR, Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore, Singapore

    Chi Wan Lim, Xiaofeng Yin, Tianyou Zhang & Yi Su

  2. Rolls-Royce, Singapore, Singapore

    Chi-Keong Goh

  3. Rolls-Royce Plc, Coventry, UK

    Alejandro Moreno & Shahrokh Shahpar

Authors
  1. Chi Wan Lim
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  2. Xiaofeng Yin
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  3. Tianyou Zhang
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  4. Yi Su
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  5. Chi-Keong Goh
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  6. Alejandro Moreno
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  7. Shahrokh Shahpar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chi Wan Lim .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Mataró, Barcelona, Spain

    Xevi Roca

  2. Inria, Palaiseau, France

    Adrien Loseille

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Lim, C.W. et al. (2019). Automatic Blocking of Shapes Using Evolutionary Algorithm. In: Roca, X., Loseille, A. (eds) 27th International Meshing Roundtable. IMR 2018. Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13992-6_10

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