All-hexahedral meshing and remeshing for multi-object manufacturing applications

All-hexahedral meshing and remeshing algorithms giving support to finite element modeling of manufacturing processes require continuous development for improving its overall robustness and applicability. This paper draws from a previous all-hexahedral algorithm presented by the authors and proposes new developments related to the construction of adaptive core meshes and processing of multi-objects that are typical of manufacturing applications.Along with the aforementioned improvements there are other developments that will also be presented due to their effectiveness in increasing the robustness of all-hexahedral algorithms. These include identification and simplification of boundary features, reconstruction of vertices and edges with minimum element distortion, smoothing of nodal points along edges and topology based mesh repair procedures to ensure completeness of edge representation.The presentation is enriched with examples taken from pure geometry and metal forming applications, and a resistance projection welding industrial test case consisting of four different objects is included to show the capabilities of selective remeshing of objects while maintaining contact conditions and local geometrical details that are critical for electro-thermo-mechanical numerical simulations. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.