Medial surface generation using chordal axis transformation in shell structures

This paper describes the generation of chordal surfaces for various shell structures, such as automobile bodies, plastic injection mold components, and sheet metal parts. After a single-layered tetrahedral mesh is generated by the advancing front method, the chordal surface is generated by cutting the tetrahedral mesh. One or more shell elements are generated at each tetrahedral element, and the chordal surface is constructed with triangular or quadrilateral shell elements. This algorithm has been tested on several models with rib structures.