LINK3D is a parallel multiblock topology-based grid generation package. High quality, geometry-aligned grids produces better computational results and faster convergence times. Find out how LINK3D can reduce your meshing times and produces higher quality grids by contacting us.
The LINK3D software is divided into two main components:
- LINK-GUI: The LINK3D graphical user interface
- LINK-GUI is used to import and create geometry, to import and create topology, to set up the grid smoothing/clustering/export operations, and to monitor the overall grid generation process.
- LINK-GRID: The parallel grid generation engine
- The LINK-GRID engine performs the majority of the numerical calculations during the grid generation process and distributes the work load across processors for optimal efficiency.
LINK-GRID interacts with LINK-GUI to allows users to perform various changes during the smoothing run to alter the outcome of the final grid. LINK-GRID is designed to run locally on a workstation or remotely on a high performance computing cluster.
The NURBS geometry engine allows precise meshing of CAD features through the use of curve groups and surface groups that correspond to relevant geometric features. The geometry engine utilizes the same NURBS representations that are common to all modern CAD software. LINK3D imports standard CAD formats such as STEP and IGES and uses the analytic NURBS definitions for all geometry-related operations. This ensures that mesh points lie exactly on the CAD features that they are constrained to since discrete geometry representations (tessellations) are not used. Parallelization of the software significantly reduces the turnaround time for grid generation by distributing the workload across multiple processors. Parallelization also enables virtually any grid topology to be scaled to a billion elements or more when using high performance computing resources.
Development of LINK3D began more than ten years ago and was driven by a number of US Department of Defense hypersonic technology programs including the DARPA HyCAUSE program, DARPA ASET program, DARPA FALCON/HTV-2 program, Air Force HIFiRE 6 program, and a number of SBIR and STTR programs through the Air Force and Missile Defense Agency. While LINK3D was developed primarily for use on hypersonic flow applications, it has been found to perform equally well on incompressible flow applications and structural analysis applications.