A C1-mapping based on finite elements on quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes
This work addresses the need for smooth mappings in computational mechanics and engineering simulations using finite elements, but the contribution is incremental as it builds on existing techniques.
The paper proposes an algorithm to construct C1-continuous mappings for quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes from standard mesh data, enabling higher-order finite elements. The method handles adaptive mesh refinement and provides efficient data storage.
Finite elements of higher continuity, say conforming in $H^2$ instead of $H^1$, require a mapping from reference cells to mesh cells which is continuously differentiable across cell interfaces. In this article, we propose an algorithm to obtain such mappings given a topologically regular mesh in the standard format of vertex coordinates and a description of the boundary. A variant of the algorithm with orthogonal edges in each vertex is proposed. We introduce necessary modifications in the case of adaptive mesh refinement with nonconforming edges. Furthermore, we discuss efficient storage of the necessary data.