On Triangulations Generated by the Largest-Angle $n$-Section Algorithm

Abstract

We define a mesh refinement algorithm based on the rule of dividing the largest angles of triangular elements of planar partitions in focus into $n$ equal parts, and analyse the (geometric) properties of triangulations generated by this technique. This largest-angle $n$-section rule is compared with the classical longest-edge $n$-section rule, where it is the longest edges which are split into $n$ equal parts. The longest-edge bisection and trisection are known to produce nondegenerate triangulations (possibly with hanging nodes), but the longest-edge $n$-sections with $n\geq 4$ always produce (infinite) sequences of triangles with minimum angles tending to zero (moreover, their relevant maximum angles tend to $\pi$), thus breaking the minimum and maximum angle conditions. We show that this degeneration effect is not a consequence of $n$-section itself. For every $n\geq 2$, the largest-angle $n$-sections produce partitions satisfying the minimum angle condition (and, therefore, the maximum angle condition). More precisely, if the initial triangle has its smallest angle $\gamma_0>0$, then all descendant triangles have angles bounded below by $m_n=\min\left\{\gamma_0,\frac{\pi}{3n}\right\},$ and, correspondingly, bounded above by $\pi-2m_n<\pi$. We also show that the recursive largest-angle $n$-section algorithm always produces a family of triangular partitions, i.e. the maximum diameter of level-$k$ descendants tends to zero as $k \to \infty$.