Title

Automatic, unstructured mesh generation for tidal calculations in a large domain

Authors

Authors

S. C. Hagen; A. K. Zundel;S. Kojima

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Int. J. Comput. Fluid Dyn.

Keywords

mesh generation; finite element method; tidal model; shallow water; equations; truncation error; computational hydrodynamics; WESTERN NORTH-ATLANTIC; SHALLOW-WATER; TRUNCATION ERROR; EQUATION; MODEL; COMPUTATIONS; PROGRESS; GRIDS; Mechanics; Physics, Fluids & Plasmas

Abstract

An automated procedure is described for the production of unstructured, finite element meshes to perform depth-integrated, hydrodynamic calculations in an ocean-scale, two-dimensional domain. Three relatively coarse meshes with nearly identical boundaries are automatically produced by basing internal size guidelines on a localized truncation error analysis that was performed using results from a highly resolved mesh. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons of model performance are made at 150 historical tidal stations. The coarsest mesh is shown to meet or exceed the overall accuracy of the other meshes, including a highly resolved mesh that has over six times as many computational points. The automated procedure quickly and easily produces a computationally efficient and accurate finite element mesh that is reproducible. In addition, the methodology is shown to have potential for assessing the importance and accuracy of and bathymetric details and evaluating historical hydrodynamic data.

Journal Title

International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics

Volume

20

Issue/Number

8

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

593

Last Page

608

WOS Identifier

WOS:000243670700005

ISSN

1061-8562

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