ELSEVIER

SO965-9978(96)00011-7

Advmces in Engineering Software 27 (1996) 103- 115

Copyright 0 1996 Civil-Comp Limited and Elsetier science Liited
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0965~9978/96/$15.00

Finite element mesh partitioning

using neural networks
A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping & A. I. Khan
Department of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, Heriot- Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

This paper examines the application of neural networks to the partitioning of

unstructured adaptive meshes for parallel explicit time-stepping finite element
analysis. The use of the mean field annealing (MFA) technique,which is basedon

the mean field theory (MFT), for finding approximate solutions to the
partitioning of the finite element meshesis investigated.The partitioning is
based on the recursive bisection approach. The method of mapping the mesh
bisection problem onto the neural network, the solution quality and the
convergence times are presented. All computational studies were carried out
using a single T800 transputer. Copyright 0 1996 Civil-Comp Limited and
Elsevier Science Limited

technique provides a method for finding good solutions

to most combinatorial optimization problems, however
the algorithm takes a long time to converge. To
overcome this problem, MFA was proposed as an
approximation
to simulated annealing. Quality of
solution was traded against the reduced computational
time.
Several methods4-7 have been developed in order to
find good solutions to partitioning graph or mesh
problems. These techniques either produce very good
solutions in a long time or alternatively produce
poor solutions in a short time. The HFA method
attempts to find solutions with reasonable accuracy in a
short period of time. Thus, MFA strikes a balance
between computational time and quality of the resulting
solution.

1 INTRODUCTION
Combinatorial optimization problems arise in many
areas of science and engineering. Unfortunately, due to
the NP (non-polynomial) nature of these problems, the
computations increase with the size of the problem.
Most computational methods that have so far been
developed which generally yield good solutions to these
problems rely on some form of heuristic. Artificial
neural networks (ANNs) make use of highly interconnected networks of simple neurons or processing
units which may be programmed to find approximate
solutions to these problems. They are also highly
parallel systems and have significant potential for
parallel hardware implementation.
The origin of the optimization neural networks
goes back to the work by Hopfield & Tank which
was a formulation of the travelling salesman problem
(TSP). The Hopfield network is a feedback-type of
neural network where the output(s) from a processing
unit is fed back as the input(s) of other units through
their interconnections. This type of network structure is
a nonlinear, continuous dynamic system. Figure 1
illustrates a typical feedback neural network.
Following the poor performance of Hopfield networks in determining valid solutions to the TSP
problem, there followed considerable research effort
to improve the performance of this type of network and
to find ways of applying it to other optimization
problems.
At about the same time of the emergency of Hopfield
networks, a new optimization method called simulated
annealingz,3 was researched and developed. This

2 MEAN FIELD ANNEALING

The roots of MFA are in the domain of statistical
physics which combines the features of Hopfield neural
network and simulated annealing. MFA is a deterministic approach which essentially replaces the discrete
degrees of freedom in a simulated annealing problem
with their average values as computed by the mean field
approximation.
2.1 Hopfield network
NP problems may be mapped onto the Hopfield discrete
state neural network using the energy function or
Liapunov function (in statistical physics) or the
103

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

104

0
-

- 0

0-

0
0
0

Fig. 1. A simple representation of a feedback network.

Hamiltonian (in statistical mechanics) which is defined
as:

(1)
where S represents the state of the network, Z is the bias,
sN), N is the number of processing units,
S=(q,sz,...,
and tij represents the strength of the synaptic connection
between the units. It is assumed that the tij matrix is
symmetric and has no self-interaction (i.e. tji = 0).
In order to move E(S) downwards on the energy
landscape, the network state is modified asynchronously
from an initial state by updating each processing unit
according to the updating rule:

c 1
N

Si

sgn

tijSj

(2)

Zi

=I

where output of ith unit is fed to the input of the jth unit
by the connection tijs The symmetry of the matrix tij
with zero diagonal elements enables E(S) to decrease
monotonically with the updating rule.

0
Fig. 3. A simplified illustration of magnetic material described
by an Ising model.

In optimization problems, the concept is to associate

the Liapunov function (1) with the problems objective
function by setting the connection weights and input
biases appropriately. Figure 2 shows a general topology
of Hopfield network.
2.2 Mean field approximation
There is a close similarity between Hopfield networks
and some simple models of magnetic materials in
statistical physics.8 A magnetic material may consist of
a set of atomic magnets arranged in a regular lattice.
The spin term represents the state of the atomic magnets
which may point in various directions. Spin l/2 is a term
used when spins can point in one of only two directions.
This is represented in an Ising model using a variable si
for which each spin may point towards the value 1 if the
spin is arranged upward and -1 when it is pointing
downward. Figure 3 shows a simplified version of a
magnetic material described using an Ising model. In a
problem with a large number of interacting spins the
solution to the problem is not usually easy to find. This
is becausethe evolution of a spin depends on a local field
which involves the fluctuation of the spins themselves
and therefore finding the exact solution may not be
manageable. However, an approximation known as
mean field theory may be carried out which consists of
replacing the true fluctuation of spins by their average
value, which is illustrated in Fig. 4.
2.3 Simulated annealing
Simulated

Buffer

Fig. 2. A general architecture of Hopfield network.

annealing

is a probabilistic

hill-climbing

algorithm which attempts to search for the global

minimum of the energy function. It carries out uphill
moves in order to increase the probability of producing

105

Mesh partitioning using neural networks

and the multiple integrals may be determined using

saddle-point expansion of E which involves the mean
field approximation that is found in Ref. 10. The saddlepoint positions are given by:

Hence using eqns (6)-(g), at the saddle points, gives:

wi - tanhui = 0

(9)

and
aE(v)
x+Ui=O
I

Fig. 4. The MFT representationof the averageof all spins

thus combining eqns (l), (9) and (lo), and assuming

Zi = 0, the MF equation is given by:

shownin Fig. 3.
solutions with lower energy. The method carries out
neighbourhood searchesin order to find new configurations using the Boltzmann distribution:
e-wIT
h(S) = z
(3)
where T is the temperature of the system and Z is the
partition function of the form:

z=c(S)e-E(S)T
However simulated annealing involves a stochastic
search for generating new configurations. In order to
reach good solutions, a large number of configurations
may have to be searched, which involves the slow
lowering of the temperature and therefore is a very CPU
time-consuming process.
2.4 Mean field annealing network

Furthermore, the continuous variables, Vi are used as

approximations to the discrete variables at a given
temperature (i.e. wi x (sJT), thus the final value of vi
approximates whether the value of Si is 1 or - 1. Figure 5
illustrates the relationship between the sigmoid tanh
function and the variation of temperature change.
Equation (11) is applied asynchronously. This is
based on updating the value of only one vi at each
time-step t + At. Unlike simulated annealing, which is a
stochastic hill-climbing method and requires an annealing schedule, MFA is deterministic and an annealing
schedule may not be necessary.
3 MEAN FIELD MESH PARTITIONING
CONVENTIONAL METHOD

Mesh partitioning or domain decomposition, may be

The purpose of the MFA approach is to approximate

the stochastic simulated annealing by the average of the
stochastic variables with a set of deterministic equations.
Peterson & Anderson showed that the discrete sum
of the partition function (4) may be replaced by a series
of multiple nested integrals over the continuous
variables ui and 2rigiving:
Z

C fi
j=l

lrn
--OO

dvj

Frn

&je-E'(v~u~T)

-i'x

(5)

where C is a constant and n J J refers to multiple

integrals. E may be given in the form of:
-4.0

E(V, U, T) = E(V)/T + 2 uiui - log(coshuJ

i=l

-3.0

-2.0

-I .o

0.0

I .o

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

(6)
Fig. 5. The gain function for different temperatures.

106

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

carried out in order to split a computationally expensive

finite element mesh into smaller subsections for parallel
computational analysis.12 Mesh generation becomes
computationally expensive as the size of the domain
increases, thus parallel finite element mesh generation
enables the distribution of the domain for the remeshing
procedure. Therefore a domain may be partitioned into
equal sizes where each subdomain is then placed on a
single processor and parallel remeshing is carried out.
There is also the problem of memory capacity of the
hardware for carrying out parallel computations. As the
size of a domain increases,thus storing a complete mesh
requiressignificant memory in the central processor(i.e. the
ROOT processor in terms of parallel transputer-based
computation), therefore an initial large mesh may have to
be divided into several subsectionsor subdomains.
Khan & Topping introduced a domain decomposition
method for partitioning meshesusing a predictive backpropagation-based neural network model and a genetic
algorithm (GA) optimization approach. The outline of the
method which is called the subdomain generation method
(SGM) may be summarized as follows:
l

use a predictive backpropagation neural network to

predict the number of triangular elements that are
generated within each element of the coarse mesh
after an adaptive unstructured remeshing has been
carried out;
employ a GA optimization-based procedure using
an objective function z = JGI- [([CL1- lGRl)l - C,
where G is the total number of elements in the final
mesh, GL and GR are the number of elements in
each bisection and C represents the interfacing
edges.The values of GL and GR are provided by the
back-propagation-based trained neural net which
gives the predicted number of elements that may be
generated within each element of the initial coarse
mesh after remeshing is made.

The SGM, compared with other mesh-partitioning

approaches,45 has been shown to be competitive in
terms of parallel finite element computations, however
the GA like simulated annealing may take a long time to
reach a final solution. The MFA approach attempts to
exchange the accuracy with execution speed considering
the fact that in most cases the MFA method does
produce competitive results. Furthermore, the MFA
method is highly parallel and should greatly benefit
from parallel hardware implementation.
The partitioning of meshesin this paper is based on
the recursive bisection carried out in Refs 4 & 7, which
recursively bisects a mesh into n2 parts, where n is the
number of subsections.
3.1 Mapping the problem onto the neural network
The problem of bisecting meshesmay be mapped onto a
feedback-type neural network and may be defined by an

objective function in the form of the Hopfield energy

function given in eqn (1). This is carried out by assigning
a binary unit of si = I or si = -1 to each element of
the mesh defining which partition the element is to be
assigned.
The connectivity of the triangular elements is encoded
in the fij matrix in the form of:
t,, 1 if a pair of elements are connected by an edge
I { 0 otherwise
With this terminology the minimization of the first term
of eqn (1) will maximize the connectivity within a
bisection while minimizing the connectivity between the
bisections. This has the effect of maximizing the
boundary. However, using this term alone as the cost
function forces all the elements to move into one
bisection, thus a penalty term is applied which measures
the violation of the equal sized bisection constraint.
Therefore the neural network Liapunov function for the
mesh bisection is in the form of:
2

E(S) = - i $ $ tij, si, sj + F

2=I ]=I

(12)

where a is the imbalance parameter which controls the

bisection ratio.
The mean field equation for the mesh bisection is
given by combining eqns (9), (10) and (12), which gives:
ui=tanh($(tij-o):)

(13)

This equation is used to compute a new value of Vi

asynchronously. Initial values for the vector V are
assigned using small continuous random values. The
temperature is lowered using a cooling factor (0.9) after
one complete iteration of eqn (13).
3.2 Selection of parameters
Phase transitions occur in materials as they cool or heat
up and they change from one state to another. Sharp
changes in the properties of a substance are often visible
as the material changes from one state to another. The
transition from liquid to gas, solid to liquid or from
paramagnet to ferromagnetic are common examples.
There is a critical temperature such as the melting or
boiling point where the state of a system suddenly
changes from a high to a lower energy state.
Although there are some analytical methods for
determining the critical temperature,89Y3
it was decided,
in this research,to determine an approximate value for the
critical temperature by using the following procedure:
(1) determine an initial bisection using an initial
temperature value (for example T 2 2);
(2) during the bisection, the changesin temperature and
the corresponding spins (vi) values are recorded;

107

Mesh partitioning using neural networks

Fig. 6. The backgroundmeshbeforethe bisection.

(3) the iteration continues using a temperature

reduction factor of 0.9. The programme is
terminated either when the number of iterations
exceeds 100 or when the system reaches a
saturation state which is defined by the term:
$ 5 0.999
(4) once the program has terminated, the temperature
where a sudden change to the spins has occurred
is identified;
(5) the MFA bisection is then repeated by initializing
the temperature with a value slightly higher than
the temperature identified.

Fig. 7. The meshafter the bisection.

Fig. 8. The variation of spin averagesas the temperatureis

decreased.
Figure 7 was the result of the bisection of the mesh
shown in Fig. 6, where the initial temperature was
chosen as 3. The total number of iterations for the
bisection was 25.
The effect of the decrease in temperature upon
individual spins for this example is represented in
Fig. 8. This figure shows that at high temperatures the
spin average diverges to near zero for all the elements
which indicates that the bisection is maximally disordered. As the temperature is decreased, the system
reaches a critical temperature where each element starts
to move significantly into one or another of two
bisections. At sufficiently low temperatures the spins
saturate at or near values of 1 or - 1. Therefore, if a net
is initialized with a temperature just above or equal to
the critical temperature, the fastest convergence to a
good global minimum should occur. Thus a bisection
for the mesh shown in Fig. 6 was carried out but this
time with an initial temperature 0.8. The total number of
iterations for this bisection was 11 which produced the
same result shown in Fig. 7.
The initial imbalance factor o is usually selectedas 1.0
for a balanced bisection. This value in most cases
ensuresa balanced bisection but a minimum cutsize may
not be produced. Therefore it was decided to carry out
an inverse annealing or, in other words, incrementation
of the initial value of (Y.This was carried out by selecting
a small initial value for IY (for example, 50.1) and once
the neural network optimization has started, CI is
increased by a factor (for example, 1.5) after one
complete iteration of eqn (13) until it reaches 1.0. The

108

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

value of cx is set at 1.0 for the rest of the optimization

procedure. This dynamic implementation of (Y proved
to be highly efficient in creating a good minimum
bisection interfaces while producing two well-balanced
subdomains.
4 MEAN FIELD MESH PARTITIONING
PREDICTIVE METHOD

MFA mesh partitioning using a predictive neural

network model differs from the conventional method
described in Section 3. The aim of the new approach is
to partition a coarse mesh on the basis of the predicted
number of triangular elements which will be generated
within each triangle of the coarse mesh after the
remeshing. The predicted number of elements is given
by a trained neural network based on the backpropagation (BP) algorithm.716
4.1 Back-propagation training of finite element meshes
Back-propagation neural nets are generally based on
multilayered networks which are used to establish a
relationship between a set of input and output values.
This relationship is stored in the form of a matrix of
connecting weight values. Once a network has been
trained, if presented with unfamiliar input, the network
considers all the learned input-output patterns and
checks the one which is most close to the given new
input and generalizes the output. For a more detailed
discussion concerning this type of network the reader
may refer to Refs 14 & 15.
The training of a BP network is such that once
trained, it may be used to predict the number of
elements that may be generated within an element of the
coarse or initial mesh. Training is carried out in the
following manner.
In order to carry out the training several background
coarse meshes were chosen and these meshes were
analyzed using different point loads.7V16Input-output
training data were created and applied in the training
procedure which consisted of:
l

l
l

A
Fig. 9. A squaredomain with in-plane load.
data consisted of three side lengths, three internal angles
and two scaled mesh parameters of each element. The
output data consisted of the number of generated
triangles in the refined mesh. A network was trained
and once a desired trained network is achieved it may be
used to predict the number of elements which may be
generated within an element of a coarse mesh.
4.2 The predictive mean field Hamiltonian
The original equation of the MFA mesh bisection
(i.e. eqn 13) was modified in order to accommodate the
predicted number of elements which may be generated
within an element of the coarse mesh. This equation was
thus modified and the MFA bisection equation for using

the data regarding the geometry of the individual

elements
the nodal mesh parameters
number of elements generated in the refined
adaptive mesh.

The geometry of a triangular element was represented

by the side lengths and the three internal angles. It was
noted that the geometry of a triangle may be defined by
the length of its sides, thus the three internal angles of
the triangular elements need not have been included in
the training datafile.i6 The three nodal mesh parameters
actually represent the size of the triangle to be generated
and they were scaled down to two. Therefore, the input

Fig. 10. The initial meshwith 46 elements.

Mesh partitioning using neural networks

109

Table 1. Comparison of the actual mmher of generatedelements

per subdomain and the ideal number of elementsper subdomain
usingtbeSGM
Required
Generated
Subdomain
elements (actual) elements
no.
1
2
3
4

99
108
97
108

103
103
103
103

Diff.

%age diff.

-4
5
-6
5

-3.88
4.85
-5825
4.85

Table 2. Comparison of the actual number of generatedelements

per sobdomain and the ideal number of elementsper subdomain
using the MFA method
Generated
Subdomain
no.
elements (actual)
99
108
97
108

1
2
3
4

Required
elements

Diff.

%age diff.

103
103
103
103

-4
5
-6
5

-3.88
4.85
-5.825
4.85

Table 3. Comparison betweentbe SGM and tbe MFA method in

terms of rontimes and tbe total number of interfacing nodesafter
tbe partitioning of example 1
Partitioning method

Interfacing nodes
62
62

SGM
MFA

Time (min)
1.067
0.05

Fig. 12. The remeshed subdomains with 412 elements

partitioned by the SGM.

This equation was applied iteratively using the same

procedure as the non-predictive asynchronous method
described earlier by initializing Uj with small continuous
random values. The temperature was lowered by a
cooling factor (0.9) after each complete iteration
eqn (15).

of

During this optimization there is a strong competition

between the cutsize term based on the connectivity of the
initial mesh and the imbalance term for the bisections
using the number of predicted elements. This makes the
selection of the initial parameters more difficult.

The selection of the initial temperature for the

predictive mesh bisection may not be as straightforward

Fig. 11. The initial mesh with 46 elements divided into four
partitions using the SGM.

the predicted number of elements is given by:

vi = tanh
\j=l

where Npred represents the predicted number of

elements.

Fig. 13. The initial mesh with 46 elements divided into four
partitions using the MFA method.

110

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

Fig. 14. The remeshed subdomains with 412 elements

partitioned by the MFA method.

Fig. 16. The initial mesh with 126 elements.

Table 4. Comparison of the actual number of generatedelements
per subdomain and the ideal number of elementsper subdomain
using the SCM

Subdomain
Generated
Required
no.
elements (actual) elements

Diff.

%age diff.

1
2
3
4

-9.75
-1.75
-3.75
15.25

-5.78
-1.03
-2.22
9-03

159
167
165
184

168.75
168.75
168.75
168.75

Table 5. Comparison of the actual number of generatedelements

per suBdomainand the ideal number of elementsper subdomain
using the MFA method
Subdomain
Generated
elements (actual)
no.

kr

Fig. 15. An L-shaped domain with in-plane load.

as the conventional method (without considering the

predictive aspect). The method for choosing the initial
temperature, which was described for the conventional
bisection method, may be carried out as a benchmark
for the predictive method, however a few temperature
and Q values may have to be tested on a trial-and-error
basis. Experienced users will find it easier to estimate
from experience close initial values for these parameters.
5 EXAMPLE STUDIES
Three examples have been presented as a test-bed for
comparative studies. In these examples the performance
of the MFA mesh-partitioning method has been
compared with the original SGM. The SGM has been

1
2
3
4

152
184
177
167

Required
elements

Diff.

%age diff.

168.75 - 16.75 -9.92

168.75
15.25
9.03
168.75
8.25
4.88
168.75 -1.75 -1.03

Table 6. Comparison betweenthe SGM and the MFA method ia

terms of nmtimes and the total number of interfacing nodesafter
the partitioning of example 2
Partitioning method
SGM
MFA

Interfacing nodes

Time (min)

76
84

3.2
0.233

compared with two other domain decomposition

methods for which the reader may refer to Refs 7 & 17.
5.1 Example 1
In this example a square-shapeddomain shown in Fig. 9
was uniformly meshed and the result was an initial mesh

Mesh partitioning using neural networks

Fig. 17. The initial meshwith 126elementsdivided into four

Fig. 19. The initial meshwith 126elementsdivided into four

partitions using the SGM.

partitions using the MFA method.

with 46 elements, which is shown in Fig. 10. This initial

mesh was then decomposed using the SGM and the
MFA method.
Tables 1 and 2 show the elements generated within
each subdomain and the corresponding ideal number of
elements required per subdomain.
Table 3 gives a comparison between the computation
time and the total number of interfacing nodes for each
method.
Figures 11 and 13 show the partitioning of the initial
mesh by the SGM and the MFA method, respectively.
Figure 12 and 14 show the remeshedsubdomains after

the partitioning by the SGM and MFA method,

respectively.
The partitions generated by the methods were identical
however the MFA method was considerably faster.

Fig. 18. The remeshed subdomains with 666 elements

partitioned by the SGM.

5.2 Example 2
This example is an L-shaped domain shown in Fig. 15,
which is uniformly meshed, and the result is an initial
coarse mesh with 126 elements, which is shown in
Fig. 16. This initial mesh was then decomposed using
the SGM and the MFA method.

Fig. 20. The remeshed subdomains with 666 elements

partitioned by the MFA method.

112

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

A

Fig. 21. A domain with cut-out and chamfer.

Fig. 22. The initial mesh with 153 elements.

Fig. 23. The initial mesh with 153 elements divided into eight partitions using the SGM.

Tables 4 and 5 shows the number of elements

generated within each subdomain and the ideal
number of elements required per subdomain.
Table 6 shows the comparison between the computation time and the total number of interfacing nodes
for both methods.

Figures 17 and 19 show the partitioning of the

mesh by the SGM and the MFA method,
respectively.
Figures 18 and 20 illustrate the remeshed subdomains
after the partitioning by the SGM and the MFA
method, respectively.
initial

113

Mesh partitioning using neural networks

Figures 18 and 20 illustrate the remeshed subdomains
after the partitioning by the SGM and the MFA,
method respectively.
The partitions for this example were not identical for
each method but they were of the sameorder of accuracy

with respectto the partition sixes(0.0%) and the number

of interface nodes (105%). The MFA method took only
7.3% of the computational time of the SGM.

Table 7. Comparison of the aedal number of generatedelements

per subdomain and the ided number of elementsper subdomain
usingtheSGM

The domain shown in Fig. 21 was selected for the final

example study and is uniformly meshed. This provided
an initial mesh with 153 elements and is shown in
Fig. 22. This initial mesh was then decomposed using
both the SGM and the MFA method.
Tables 7 and 8 show the elements generated within
each subdomain and the ideal number of elements which
is desired per subdomain.
Table 9 shows a comparison between the computation
time and the total number of interfacing nodes for each
method.
Figures 23 and 25 show the partitioning of the initial
mesh by the SGM and the MFA method, respectively.
Figures 24 and 26 show the remeshed subdomains
after the partitioning by the SGM and the MFA
method, respectively.
The partitions generated by the methods were
different. The maximum positive imbalance in the
mesh partitions was 3.75 and 9.21% for the SGM and
the MFA method, respectively. There was a 50%
difference in the number of interfacing nodes in favour
of the SGM. The MFA method took less than 8% of
the computational time of the SGM.

Required Diff. %agediff.

Subdomain
Generated
elements(actual) elements
no.
1
128
146.5 -18.5 -12.62
2
150
146.5
3.5
2.39
3
150
146.5
3.5
2.39
4
5
6
7
8

144
152

146.5
146.5

149

146.5

150
147

146.5
146.5

-2.5
5.5
2.5
3.5
0.5

-1.707
3.75
1.707

2.39
0.341

Table 8. Comparison of the actual number of generatedelements

per s&domain and the ided mm&r of elementsper subdomain
USillgtkMFAIldlOd

Generated
Required Diff. %agediff.
Subdomain
no.
elements(actual) elements
1
136
146.5 -10.5 -7.16
2
160
146.5
13.5
9.21
3
4
5
6
7
8

151
157
146
138
141
137

146.5
146.5
146.5
146.5
146.5
146.5

4.5
10.5
-0.5
-8.5
-5.5

-9.5

3.07
7.16
-0.34
-5.80
-3.75
-6.48

Table 9. Comparison betweenthe SGM and the MFA method in

terms of runtimes and the total number of interfacing nodesafter
tbe partitioning of example 3

Partitioning method
SGM
MFA

Interfacing nodes
179
188

Time (min)
4.267
0.333

5.3 Example 3

6 CONCLUDING

REMARKS

From the examples presented it is clear that partitioning

of the initial coarse mesh using the MFA method may
be achieved with much less computational effort. The
number of interacting nodes and the number of elements
generated per subdomain after the remeshing of each
partition produced by the MFA partitioning method are
competitive with those produced by the SGM.

Fig. 24. The remeshedsubdomainswith 1172elementspartitioned by the SGM.

114

A. Bahreininejad, B. H. V. Topping, A. I. Khan

Fig. 25. The initial meshwith 153elementsdivided into eight partitions using the MFA method.

Fig. 26. The remeshedsubdomainswith 1172elementspartitioned by the MFA method.

This paper has demonstrated the efficient use of
neural networks in the partitioning of finite element
meshes. The method is so efficient it appears apparent
that it might be applied directly to the refined meshes
without using the predictive model. The partitioning
using the predictive neural network model has more
complex energy criteria which may consist of many local
minima. Perhaps the only drawback of using the
predictive MFA partitioning method is the high degree
of parameter sensitivity (i.e. temperature and a). In
general, good partitions may be generated for both
conventional and predictive MFA partitioning with
little computational expense. The method also has a
high potential for parallel implementation which would
increase the performance of the network in terms of
convergence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

acknowledge the useful discussions with other members

of the Structural Engineering Computational Technology Research Group (SECT) in the Department of
Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, at Heriot-Watt
University. In particular Janos Sziveri, Janet Wilson,
Biao Cheng, Joao Leite and Jsrgen Stang. We are also
grateful for the contact with Mattias Ohlsson, University of Lund, Sweden; Arun Jagota, State University
of New York at Buffalo, NY; and Tal Grossman, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, TX. We are grateful for
their response over the Internet.

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The research described in this paper was supported by

Marine Technology Directorate Limited (MTD)
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