Abstract：To investigate the influences of element number, iteration number and required accuracy on optimization, a tetrahedron quality metric was chosen to establish objective function to propose a tetrahedral mesh optimization algorithm. Based on volute calculating example of a centrifugal pump, the influences of the key factors on the optimized mesh quality and time consuming were compared. The results show that the poorquality elements in the range from 0 to 0.1 are significantly reduced. The whole mesh quality can be improved obviously by the mesh optimizationbased smoothing algorithm. The average mesh quality and the time cost are increased with the increase of element number, but the worstquality element is fluctuant with one extremum. Iteration number has slight effect on the mesh quality and time cost. The mesh quality is improved with increased time cost by the increasing of required accuracy.
2012, Vol. 33 
