Constructing Models for Finite Element Simulation Using GOCAD.

@inproceedings{ZehnerGM2011,
 abstract = { Several research projects at the UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research involve the simulation of processes in the subsurface, such as groundwater flow or CO2 storage in reservoirs, using finite element software. This requires the generation of suitable input models. GOCAD generally supports two types of 3D grids: hexahedral grids (SGrids or Structured Grids) and tetrahedral grids (TSolids or Unstructured Grids). In order to represent complicated geological structures, tetrahedral grids would be preferable but unfortunately their construction in GOCAD is less well supported. To generate tetrahedral grids with sufficient quality, the quality of the triangular meshes must be higher than is normally required for illustration and communication purposes and they must fulfil certain constraints.
This contribution will explain which constraints these are and how the construction of complicated geological structures, such as faulted systems, can be done in order to meet these requirements. To accomplish this task plugins for GOCAD have been written that support simple interaction or modelling functionality that is not present in GOCAD so far and which in addition provide an interface from GOCAD to external meshing tools that are free for non-commercial use. Further plugins have been implemented that provide interfaces with the finite element simulation software OpenGeoSys that is developed at the UFZ and to the software Paraview for scientific visualization of the results. },
 author = { Zehner, Björn },
 booktitle = { Proc. 31st Gocad Meeting, Nancy },
 title = { Constructing Models for Finite Element Simulation Using GOCAD. },
 year = { 2011 }
}