In this section, we'll cover the following:

• Why regular rectangular meshes are insufficient for realistic plate analysis.
• The importance of meshing as a pre-processing step in finite element analysis.
• Introduction to Gmsh as an open-source meshing tool with a Python API.
• Generating both regular and non-rectangular 2D meshes.
• Extending meshes with features such as holes and specified nodal locations.
• Organising meshing and visualisation code into reusable Python utilities.

In this lecture, we focus on meshing as a crucial step in extending finite element analysis beyond simple rectangular plate models. We recognise that real-world problems require more complex geometries and boundary conditions, and that generating high-quality meshes is essential for accurate analysis. Rather than building meshing algorithms from scratch, we adopt Gmsh, a powerful open-source tool, and interact with it through its Python API.

We begin by recreating familiar regular meshes before progressing to more complex, non-rectangular geometries. From there, we enhance our models by introducing features such as openings and user-defined nodal positions, which are particularly useful for practical structural applications. Finally, we consolidate our work by packaging the meshing and visualisation functionality into reusable Python scripts, enabling efficient use in future analyses.

Next up

In the next lecture, we will begin generating our first quadrilateral mesh using the Gmsh Python API.