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Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

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Topological mesh for shell structures

Rafael Jurado-Pina b, Luisa Mara Gil-Martn a,1, Enrique Hernandez-Montes a,*
a
Department of Structural Mechanics, University of Granada, Campus de Fuentenueva, 18072 Granada, Spain
b
ETSI de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Technical University of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Received 1 June 2006; received in revised form 1 December 2007; accepted 17 December 2007
Available online 31 December 2007

Abstract

Recently a new technique for the meshing of tension structures has been developed by Hernandez-Montes et al. [E. Her-
nandez Montes, R. Jurado-Pina, E. Bayo, Topological mapping for tension structures, J. Struct. Eng. ASCE 132 (6) (2006)
970977]. This new procedure was based on topology and it was specially designed for tension structures. In this paper an
extension of this technique to shell structures is developed. Topological meshing may constitute the rst step in the com-
mon iterative process of discretization to facilitate the resolution of a partial dierential equation.
Topological meshing takes advantage of an important property of the force density method (FDM) proposed by Link-
witz and Schek [K. Linkwitz, H.J. Shek, Einige Bemerkung von vorsgepannten Seilnetzkonstruktionen, Ingenieur-Archv
40, Springer-Verlag, 1971, pp. 145158] by which the initial position of the non-xed nodes of the structure is not needed,
only the connectivity of the nodes is necessary for the solution of the problem. Accordingly, a mapping method was
recently presented based on topology; in contrast to the mapping methods used so far based exclusively on geometry.
The most important contribution of this new approach is that due to mapping in topology, an initial guess of the tension
structure equilibrium position is not needed as part of the solution process. The ease of implementation, the extension of
the topology meshing and the application of this method to geometrically dened structures is also illustrated in this paper.
Several examples are presented to illustrate the applicability of this new method.
2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Mapping; Tension structures; Topological mapping

1. Introduction

Meshing is the process of breaking up a physical domain into smaller sub-domains (elements) in order to
facilitate the numerical solution of a partial dierential equation. While meshing can be used for a wide variety
of applications, the principal application of interest is the nite element method (FEM) and the boundary
elements method (BEM). Surface domains may be subdivided into triangle or quadrilateral shapes, while

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 958 249 965; fax: +34 958 249 959.
E-mail addresses: rjurado@caminos.upm.es (R. Jurado-Pina), mlgil@ugr.es (L.M. Gil-Martn), emontes@ugr.es (E. Hernandez-
Montes).
1
Tel.: +34 958 249 965; fax: +34 958 249 959.

0307-904X/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apm.2007.12.018
 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958 949

Nomenclature

C branch-node matrix
i(j) node i of branch j
j branch
k(j) node k of branch j
lj length of branch j
l vector of the length of the branches
px, py, pz vectors of the force components for each node
q, qj forcedensity ratio of branch j
q vector containing the forcedensity ratios qj of all the branches
r, Pi node
sj force of the branch j
s vector formed by the branch forces
u, v, w coordinate dierence of the connected nodes
U, V, W, L, Q diagonal matrices resulting from placing the vectors u, v, w, l and q in the main diagonal
xi, yi, zi coordinates of node i
x, y, z vectors of nodal coordinates, xi, yi and zi, respectively

volumes may be subdivided primarily into tetrahedra or hexahedra shapes. The shape and distribution of the
elements is ideally dened by automatic meshing algorithms.
The notion of meshing in topology has been introduced recently by Hernandez-Montes et al. [1]. This type
of meshing was conceived for tension structures, and it requires the use of the force density method (FDM).
The force density method was initially presented by Linkwith and Shek [2]. This method is based upon the
forcelength ratios or force densities which are dened for each branch of the net structure. Shek [3] shows
that the force densities are very suitable for the description of the equilibrium state of any general network.
The FDM renders a simple linear system of equations for a possible initial conguration.
Meshing in topology, applied to tension structures, takes advantage of an important property of the FDM
by which knowledge of the initial position of the non-xed nodes of the structure is not needed, only the con-
nectivity of the nodes is necessary for the solution of the problem. Accordingly, a new meshing method was
presented that was based on topology; in contrast to the meshing methods used so far that were based on
geometry. The most important contribution of this approach was that due to meshing in topology an initial
guess of the equilibrium position was not needed as part of the solution process. The method of meshing in
topology was initially conceived for tension structures.
As we can contemplate through the many examples presented, for example, in the book of Levy and Spillers
[4], an initial guess of the shape is needed in order to generate a network of the mesh, for instant the approx-
imate shape of the horizontal projection. With this initial shape it is easy to consider a network even when we
pick only the connections as input in the FDM.
The most important contribution of mapping in topology is that an initial guess of the equilibrium position
is not needed as part of the solution.
This article raises the extension of the topological meshing for other types of structures. In this paper shell
structures are studied. Two procedures of perform the mapping for shell structures are contemplated, the rst
is for structures with positive Gauss curvature and the second procedure is for shell structures with negative
Gauss curvature. An example of each case has been developed.

2. The forcedensity method

The starting point for the FDM is a pin-joint network consisting of cable or bar elements, in which some of
the points are xed and the others are free, and the free points will have to nd a position in the equilibrium
conguration.
950 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

1 0 1 0
C = 0 0 1 1 Branches
0 1 1 0

Nodes

Fig. 1. Example for the construction of the branch-node matrix.

For a given pin-joint network with n nodes and m branches, the branch-node matrix C is a m  n matrix
used in the FDM to dene the connectivity of the nodes as indicated in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1, each branch
or connection j links two nodes i(j) and k(j), for i < k the elements of the branch-node matrix C can be
dened as follows:
8
< 1 if ij r;
>
Cj; r 1 if kj r; 1
>
:
0 for the rest:
The nodes Pi have coordinates (xi, yi, zi), i = 1, . . . , n. Some of these nodes are xed, and they will constitute the
input data for the initial equilibrium conguration problem. The x, y and z-coordinates for each of the nodes
can be grouped in the n-vectors x, y and z. The m-vector l contains the lengths lj of each branch j, and the
vector s is the m-vector formed by the branch forces sj of each branch j. The nodal loads are characterized
by means of n-vectors p containing the force components px, py and pz.
The equilibrium equations for each node may now be established. In the case of Fig. 1, the equilibrium
equations for node 3 come from the projections of the forces along each one of the axes:
s1 s2 s3
x3  x1 x3  x4 x3  x2 p3x ;
l1 l2 l3
s1 s2 s3
y 3  y 1 y 3  y 4 y 3  y 2 p3y ; 2
l1 l2 l3
s1 s2 s3
z3  z1 z3  z4 z3  z2 p3z :
l1 l2 l3
The great advantage of the FDM is the introduction of a parameter q, which is dened as the forcelength
ratio or force density for the branches. If q is constant then the equilibrium equations become a linear system.
For a more general formulation of the FDM, the coordinate dierences u, v and w of the connected nodes
are considered. These are m-vectors that can be obtained using the C matrix as follows:
u Cx;
v Cy; 3
w Cz:
Considering that the matrices U, V, W and L are the diagonal matrices resulting from placing the vectors u, v,
w and l in the main diagonal, the equilibrium equations for the complete network may be cast in the following
form:
C t UL1 s px 0;
C t VL1 s py 0; 4
t 1
C WL s pz 0:
A key property of the FDM is that the above system of equations is a linear system under the following
assumption:
q L1 s; 5
 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958 951

where q is an m-vector containing the forcedensity ratios qj of all the branches. Finally, taking into account
the following identities:
Uq Qu;
Vq Qv; 6
Wq Qw
and letting Q be the diagonal matrix that contains q, the following equilibrium equations may be obtained:
C T QCx px 0;
C T QCy py 0; 7
T
C QCz pz 0:
The above system of equations constitutes a linear system where the known values are the coordinates of the
xed points, the topology of the pin-joint network, and the force density values.
The unknowns are the coordinates of non-xed nodes.

3. Topology meshing

The main feature of the topological meshing introduced by Hernandez-Montes et al. [1] is that with a few
topological rules a meshing can be performed independently of the nal geometric conguration. Based on
this new concept many types of topological networks can be selected and performed. Three basic networks

Fig. 2. Topology of network type A.

952 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

are presented here: type A, type B and type C that correspond to Figs. 24, respectively. The basic networks
are classied in close network and open network.
In case of the type A open basic network (Fig. 2), the connectivity between nodes is represented by thick
and dashed lines, and the nodes are black or gray (with no dierence among them). In case of the type A close
basic network (Fig. 2), the connectivity between nodes is represented by thick lines, and dashed lines mean
repeated connections. In the case of the type A close basic network the black circles represent nodes, and
the gray circles represent repeated nodes.
Three symbols are needed in order to illustrate network type B (Fig. 3). Black, gray and empty circles mean
nodes in the open network type B. In the case of close networks, a black circle means node, gray circle means
repeated node and empty circle means non existing node. The same for the thick line, dashed thick line and

Fig. 3. Topology of network type B.

Fig. 4. Topology of network type C.

 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958 953

dashed thin line, all of them mean connectivity in open network; and for close network they mean connectiv-
ity, repeated connectivity and non existing connectivity, respectively.
The behavior of the basic network type C (Fig. 4) open or close is similar to network type A.
The basic network A correspond to a pattern in which each node at a given step is connected to the adjacent
ones on the same step as well as three more nodes of the following step. In this way the number of nodes of
each step is double the amount of the previous one for the closed conguration, and double plus one node for
the open conguration.
The basic network B is similar to type A with the dierence that each node at a given step is connected to
two nodes of the following step. With network B the number of nodes of each step is equal to that of the pre-
vious step for the closed conguration and the previous plus one for the open conguration.
The pattern of basic network C is such that each node at a given step is connected alternatively to one or
three nodes of the next step. In this way the number of nodes in each step remains the same for both open as
well as closed networks.
The described basic networks originate from an initial node that is connected to the n nodes of the second
step. However, this initial node may be suppressed in open networks, as well as closed networks whenever it is
desired to create a new interior contour in the interior of the net.
The algorithms that generate close networks require a reduced and simple data input, namely: the location
of the xed nodes, the force densities of the interior and exterior branches, and the topology of the net. The
topology is characterized by the number of nodes of the second step, the number of steps and the basic pat-
tern. The distribution of nodes of the last step along the contour as well as the xed points is done in an auto-
matic way for closed networks. In this way for any given contour, it is possible to directly generate an
equilibrium conguration. On the other hand, with open network is more complicated since all the steps share
nodes on the given contour.
For the closed networks the nodes in the last step are the nodes located at the exterior of the nal cong-
uration as well as the xed nodes. The amount of nodes between consecutive xed points is proportional to the
length between them. In the case of open networks the outside nodes correspond to the outside of the graph
tree. If the node of the rst step is eliminated, the rst step may produce a xed part of the structure, and a
network with an interior hole will appear.
The basic networks may present several problems if directly applied. For example, types B and C require a
high number of nodes in their second step for closed networks. On the other hand, network A produces a high
number of nodes just after a few steps. These limitations may be eliminated by using topology combinations of
the basic networks A, B and C to form what it is called simple networks. In this case, the user needs to dene
the desired sequence of combinations.
In order to be able to address the problem of complex congurations with several holes, simple networks
open or/and closed can be mixed together. These combinations lead to the concept of combined networks.
Fig. 5 shows some examples of tension structures meshed in topology.

4. Topological meshing for geometrically dened structures

Topological meshing can be used for a wide variety of applications as a mesh tool; later to apply the nite
element method or the boundary element method.
We have satisfactorily applied the topological meshing to shell structures (and its later study by means of
the Finite Element Method) and other types of structures by means of the Boundary Element Method.
In case of shell structures with negative Gauss curvature in all its points, we can determine an equilibrium
conguration supported on the boundary of the geometrical gure. This equilibrium conguration constitutes
a geometry that approaches at a greater or lesser extent to the surface geometry to be mapped.
Then an orthogonal projection of the equilibrium conguration on the original structure is done.
As an example, Fig. 7 shows the surface of a hyperbolic paraboloid dened by the following equation:

x2 y2
z  :
130 100
954 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

Fig. 5. Examples of the use of meshing in topology.

The perimeter of the hyperbolic paraboloid has been dened by the intersection of the above equation with the
following four vertical planes, see Fig. 6:

x 200;
x 200;
y 200;
y 200:

The perimeter of the surface has been adopted for dening the contours of the equilibrium conguration. The
other variables necessary to nd the equilibrium conguration are the type of topological network and force
density ratio of the elements. A simple closed network has been chosen with 10 steps, which is based on a node
in the rst step connected to six nodes in the second step, the type of network for steps 310 are a combina-
tions of network type A and B (Figs. 2 and 3), this combination is dened in Table 1. The adopted value for
the force density ratio is one (q = 1).
It can be checked that for the chosen network the number of nodes in the last step is 96. These nodes have
to be distributed in the perimeter of the equilibrium conguration, which coincide with the perimeter of the
hyperbolic paraboloid. The 96 nodes are located on the perimeter with the condition of constant distance
 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958 955

Fig. 6. Hyperbolic paraboloid.

Table 1
Conguration of the simple closed network
Step number Type of basic network
3 A
4 B
5 A
6 B
7 A
8 B
9 B
10 B

between them. With the given data, Eq. (7) are solved obtaining the equilibrium conguration (Fig. 7). The
type of basic network chosen for each step is also shown in Fig. 7, see upper view.
Finally, the nodes of the surface of equilibrium obtained with the force density method are orthogonally
projected on the initial surface. The projection denes a set of nodes and connections that constitute the mesh-
ing of the initial surface.
The initial surface (hyperbolic paraboloid) and the equilibrium conguration are represented in Fig. 8. The
dash lines represent the equilibrium conguration and the continuous lines represent the nal mapping on the
original surface.
After the application of the topological mesh there are several methods for rening the nite element mesh
in order to capture specic physical phenomena in the model.
In case of a geometrically dened structure as a sphere (Fig. 9), a cross section is performed to the structure,
once the contour of the section is dened (i.e. a circle in the case of the sphere), an equilibrium shape sup-
ported in this contour is devised. The meshing of the equilibrium shape is performed according to the topo-
logical method developed in the previous section. The mesh of the equilibrium shape projects on the initial
structure. This projection can be made of diverse forms. Radial projection has been used in Fig. 9 to dene
956 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

Fig. 7. Perspective and upper view of the equilibrium conguration.

Fig. 8. Meshing of the initial hyperbolic paraboloid.

the nal mesh. The projection focus has been located at the center of the cross section, at a distance of R
(radius of the sphere) to the cross section in opposite orientation to the remaining semi-sphere, see Fig. 9.
 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958 957

Node on the sphere

Node of the equilibrium

shape

Focus of projection

Fig. 9. Projection process and topological mesh of the sphere.

5. Conclusions

In this paper a new procedure for mapping shell structures is presented. The new method deals with a topol-
ogy based pin-joint network that is easy to use and leads to dierent mesh choices. This rst discretization may
constitute the rst step or a higher rened discretization. We would like to emphasize that the combination of
the topological mapping here presented and the already existing geometrical procedures for meshing constitute
an ecient method to obtain a straightforward discretization of shell structures.

Acknowledgement

We extend our sincere appreciation to the Professor Rafael Gallego for his stimulation to extend the topo-
logical mapping to other types of structures.

References

[1] E. Hernandez Montes, R. Jurado-Pina, E. Bayo, Topological mapping for tension structures, J. Struct. Eng. ASCE 132 (6) (2006) 970
977.
958 R. Jurado-Pina et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 948958

[2] K. Linkwitz, H.J. Shek, Einige Bemerkung von vorsgepannten Seilnetzkonstruktionen, Ingenieur-Archv 40, Springer-Verlag, 1971, pp.
145158.
[3] H.J. Schek, The force density method for form nding and computation of general networks, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 3
(1974) 115134.
[4] R. Levy, W.R. Spillers, Analysis of Geometrically Nonlinear Structures, second ed., Ed. Chapman & Hall, 2004, 288p.