Mesh coarsening for the finite and the boundary element method in acoustics

The process of mesh coarsening describes the reduction and simplification of a highly detailed mesh in such a way that the original geometry is best possible preserved. The earliest coarsening algorithms were developed for real time visualizations in the upcoming field of computer graphics and later on adopted for some element topologies of the finite element method (FEM). An algorithm is presented in this article which applies the mesh decimation process to the requirements of both the FEM and the Boundary Element Method (BEM) in acoustics. The capabilities of the algorithm in order to significantly reduce the CPU times for both numerical methods are shown.