Automatic Hexahedral Mesh Generator for the Electromagnetic Modeling of Complex Navy Platforms with Array Antennas and Radomes

Sophisticated high-fidelity Computational Electromagnetics (EM) simulation tools, such as HyPerComp’s HDPhysics-RF software toolset, allow for performance analysis of very complex antenna arrays on full aircraft configurations for Navy applications. Currently, these tools utilize high resolution tetrahedral elements resulting in a large number of cells and high computational burden. However, hexahedral (hex) meshes can provide better quality cells with superior performance along with a significant reduction in total number of elements (for a same cell size, one hex cell can replace 5-10 tetrahedral cells). This dual advantage of better accuracy along with reduced number of cells results in significant reduction in simulation run time. However, mesh generation tools for automatic creation of hexahedral elements do not currently exist. Under this STTR work, we are developing automatic hexahedral mesh generators specifically optimized for analysis of complex antenna arrays on full aircraft platforms. The overall workflow consists of three stages. First, we utilize a template toolset to automatically create complex antenna array geometries and the related hex mesh. Second, we utilize the LoopyCuts, and/or PolyCube algorithms to generate a hex mesh for the aircraft platform such as a helicopter. Third, the antenna mesh and the aircraft mesh are merged into the final mesh for the EM analysis. Texas A&M University is our Research Institution partner with Professors Scott Schaefer and Shane Li, and their team members providing the necessary algorithmic/mathematical and coding support.