Application of solid modeling to three-dimensional electrostatic field computation

Abstract

A computer program for three-dimensional electrostatics analysis is presented that uses solid modeling principles to specify and construct problem geometries, and Delaunay tessellation to generate meshes. With the solid modeling approach, simple solid primitives are constructed by sweeping or revolving two-dimensional cross sections entered into the computer using a graphic sketch-pad and mouse. The solid primitives are then manipulated using the Boolean operations of union, intersection, and subtraction to produce complex solids. Once the problem geometry is entered, Delaunay tesselation is used to generate automatically a tetrahedral mesh that is ideal for finite-element analysis. The combination of solid modeling with Delaunay tesselation provides an extremely powerful and convenient user interface for finite-element analysis of electrostatic fields in three dimensions.<>