Computer finite-element mesh operation

In Chapter 12, Cemescu et al. present a reverse engineering application in the context of dental engineering. The aim is to efficiently and effectively assess the mechanical quality of manufactured complete dentures in terms of their behavior to mechanical stresses e.g. detect areas likely to underperform or crack in normal operation mode. The reverse engineering pipeline presented covers the steps of 3D model acquisition by means of scanning and surface reconstruction, creation of a finite element mesh suitable for numerical simulations, and the actual computation of stress and strain factors in presence of induced model defects. 

In this example, one periodic element (a cross-over) of the laboratory scale version of Katapak -S was selected for the detailed CFD simulation with CFX-5. This solver uses the finite volume discretization method in combination with hybrid unstructured grids. Around 1,100 spherical particles of 1 mm diameter were included in the computational domain. As the liquid flows through the catalyst-filled channels at operating conditions below the load point (cf. Moritz and Hasse, 1999), permeability of the channel walls made of the wire mesh is not taken into account by this particular model. The catalyst-filled channels are considered fully wetted by the liquid creeping down, whereas the empty channels are completely occupied by the counter-current gas. It means that the bypass flow... 

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