Hi. What is the difference between structured and unstructured mesh?? and what are the advantages of structured mesh over the unstructured one?? I am refering to EFFECT OF THE TYPE OF MESH ON THE PHYSICS OF THE PROBLEM. IF THERE ARE ANY PAPERS/RESOURCES AVAILABLE, KINDLY LET ME KNOW. Regards VVJ.

Dear Vijesh,

A structured mesh is one in which the connectivity is implicit, give a cell we can identify the neighbours without any additional information. Unstructured meshes have an explicit connectivity, which means identifying neighbours of a cell requires additional information. In general, unstructured meshes are triangular and structured meshes are quad, but it is well possible to have unstructured quad meshes and the defintion is more important than the appearance persay.

The structured mesh is not very popular for complex configurations, but wherever possible requires lesser computational effort, as the connectivity is implictly built in the mesh structure. The unstrucutred mesh is very attractive for complex configurations. In certain comples problems involving viscous flows, the two types are used, giving a hybrid mesh. The structured grid is close to the body, to resolve the viscous layers through stretched, large aspect ratio cells, while the unstructured framework will cater for the remaining part of the domain, resolving any complex geometry.

If I am right, there has been similar posts on this forum at an earlier date. You could look at the archives for the relevant discussions. Also you could look out for quite a number of literature which are available.

Hope this helps

Regards

Ganesh