Check it Out: AutoHex DOE Grant Proposal

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

XYZ Scientific Applications has been developing high-quality meshing tools for finite element analyses and computational fluid dynamics simulations since 1991. Its TrueGrid hex, shell, and beam mesh generator is widely deployed in industry, government, and research worldwide. Not content to rest on its laurels, XYZ has begun work on what it calls TrueGrid AutoHex.

The basic idea of AutoHex is twofold. First, the company seeks to develop the automatic mesh generation technology to solve large-scale systems of partial differential equations with a very high-resolution hexahedral mesh. XYZ has performed some preliminary work that demonstrates the feasibility of creating a program that will distribute across a massively parallel computer system then generate any size hexahedral mesh efficiently. By “any size” imagine, say, a quarter of a trillion hex elements. By “massively parallel computer,” the company means current technology as well the petascale and larger systems coming our way.

Secondly, TrueGrid AutoHex is intended to mesh “certain types of boundary quad meshes ]that] no automatic hex mesh generator can mesh.” In a delightful bit of understatement, XYZ says in a PDF of its grant proposal, you “can anticipate some of the profound effects such a capability will have in scientific investigations.” The company cites weather, nuclear explosions, and full and detailed FE models of a human body as some of the large-scale simulations potentially enabled through the capabilities of AutoHex. You can imagine what a virtually limitless automatic hex mesh generation capability could mean to you.

Today’s Check It Out is also two-fold. First, you’ll see a link to the 31-page grant proposal for the development of AutoHex that XYZ submitted to Department of Energy. This document is packed with technical details that, when I finished reading it, reminded me of how little I know about so much. I know that some of you have the noodles to get into this PDF big time. Please do. I found it fascinating albeit above my pay grade.

The second part is a web page created by Robert Rainsberger, President and CEO of XYZ Scientific Applications, and his staff yesterday in response to my inquiries about this Check It Out write-up. (Let me digress here to say that such responsiveness to my dumb questions is something I’ve never encountered. Class outfit. Thank you.) This is a one-page summary of the automatic capabilities being developed at XYZ Scientific Applications that could serve to satisfy many of your information needs.

So, there it be: A sneak preview of what’s coming down the road in the world of mesh generation.

Thanks, pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Check out the AutoHex DOE Grant Proposal and TrueGrid AutoHex Web Page.