A novel mesh morphing technique for large shape deformation and its application to optimal design problems

In the process of finding the optimal solution by parameter sweeping analysis for optimal shape design problems, the silhouette of the device to be optimized usually needs to be changed many times. To avoid the tedious and time-consuming mesh regeneration process when the shape parameters change, a parameterized mesh technique is adopted in this paper. In the proposed method, the new coordinates of the nodes and their displacement vectors can be obtained instantly because all nodes are associated with the design parameters. To eliminate inverted elements in case of large shape deformation, a smart edge swapping technique is proposed. The edge swapping process is based on the nodal displacement vectors and the edge facing the displacement vector of the node is to be swapped. The parameterized mesh technique is fully described and examples are also given to showcase the effectiveness of the proposed method.