[Getdp] Line elements at boundaries

Erich Muschka Schulz Erich.Schulz at newcastle.edu.au
Tue Apr 26 06:03:53 CEST 2005


Hi all:

I was wondering about the existence of line elements (elements with two 
nodes to each element) at the boundary of my model?

When I mesh my model, gmsh creates line elements at the very outer 
periphery of the model.  I think this is occurring because I have 
declared a "physical entity"  Boundary, which contains all of the lines 
on the outer edge of the model. I did this so that I could specify the 
nodal values at the boundary.


I wasn't aware that line elements were required at the edge of models, 
in particular, as I am constraining the nodal values at the periphery to 
be zero. As far as I am aware, the triangular elements should be 
sufficient to describe the field solution at the periphery. I am unclear 
about the impact of the line elements on the final result for the 2D 
magnetic vector potential solution. I am only interested in obtaining 
the values of the vector potential.


If the line elements will cause problems, how can I identify all of the 
nodes at the periphery, without creating all of the line elements in the 
mesh?


Cheers

Erich