An interpolation tool for aerodynamic mesh deformation problems based on octree decomposition

Abstract The necessity to modify a pre-existing computational mesh is a common requirement in many areas of computational fluid dynamics like aeroelasticity, optimization, etc. Here, we propose an approach to develop an efficient numerical mesh movement tool. The strategy relies on a three steps procedure: (i) generation of an octree decomposition of the geometry, (ii) definition of small interpolation domains, and (iii) application of local interpolation algorithms. Deformation is propagated from the moving boundaries towards the far field in a way similar to an advancing front methodology, which ensures continuity and numerical viability. The method can be applied to any type of mesh: structured, multiblock structured, unstructured and hybrid because it only uses geometric position of the mesh points, regardless of the particular mesh connectivities. The interpolation tool is based on radial basis functions. It will be showed that the method is very robust and generates a mesh with similar quality parameters as the original, it is computationally very efficient and can be easily parallelized.