TY - JOUR
T1 - Efficient Generation of Membrane and Solvent Tetrahedral Meshes for Ion Channel Finite Element Calculation
AU - Chao , Zhen
AU - Gui , Sheng
AU - Lu , Benzhuo
AU - Xie , Dexuan
JO - International Journal of Numerical Analysis and Modeling
VL - 6
SP - 887
EP - 906
PY - 2022
DA - 2022/09
SN - 19
DO - http://doi.org/
UR - https://global-sci.org/intro/article_detail/ijnam/21038.html
KW - Finite element method, Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations, ion channel, membrane mesh generation, tetrahedral mesh.
AB - <p style="text-align: justify;">A finite element solution of an ion channel dielectric continuum model such as Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE) and a system of Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations (PNP) requires
tetrahedral meshes for an ion channel protein region, a membrane region, and an ionic solvent region as well as an interface fitted irregular tetrahedral mesh of a simulation box domain. However,
generating these meshes is very difficult and highly technical due to the related three regions having very complex geometrical shapes. Currently, an ion channel mesh generation software package
developed in Lu’s research group is the only one available in the public domain. To significantly
improve its mesh quality and computer performance, in this paper, new numerical schemes for
generating membrane and solvent meshes are presented and implemented in Python, resulting
in a new ion channel mesh generation software package. Numerical results are then reported to
demonstrate the efficiency of the new numerical schemes and the quality of meshes generated
by the new package for ion channel proteins with ion channel pores having different geometric
complexities.</p>