Quality-Preserving Linear Elasticity Mesh Movement Algorithm for Multi-Element Unstructured Meshes

A linear elasticity mesh movement algorithm is presented for unstructured computational aerodynamic meshes consisting of multiple element types. An adaptive method for incrementally stiffening mesh elements is proposed based on mesh element quality. Mesh element quality is defined as the condition number of the coordinate mapping from the element at the previous increment to the current increment. This definition is adopted because it is applicable to elements of arbitrary shape or size. Augmenting the linear elasticity algorithm with this quality metric is demonstrated to improve the success rate of an implicit flow solver on the moved mesh for two practical three-dimensional test cases of industrial relevance and scale.