Keywords: finite elements, overlapping finite elements, AMORE, automatic meshing with overlapping and regular elements, statics and dynamics, computational effort.

A major difficulty in traditional finite element analysis is the effort of meshing complex three-dimensional solids and structures. The inherent reason for the difficulty is that highly distorted elements should be avoided. This condition is difficult to satisfy because the traditional elements must abut to each other, that is, they cannot overlap. To overcome this restriction, we have developed “overlapping elements”. These elements perform well even when highly distorted and hence can be used much more easily in meshing a complex domain. However, they use additional nodal degrees of freedom which add to the computational effort of solution. To reduce the overall solution cost, including the meshing, we focus on the AMORE scheme in which traditional undistorted elements are used to discretize most of the analysis domain and overlapping elements are used for the rest of the domain. The premise is that in this way, the meshing effort is much reduced and the computational effort is also less than in a traditional finite element analysis. This way the use of AMORE leads to an overall efficient modern finite element analysis.

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