A new approach to the merging of Finite Element (FE) triangle meshes is proposed. Not only it takes into
account the geometric aspects, but it also considers the way the semantic information possibly associated
to the groups of entities (nodes, faces) can be maintained. Such high level modification capabilities are
of major importance in all the engineering activities requiring fast modifications of meshes without
going back to the CAD model. This is especially true in the context of industrial maintenance where
the engineers often have to solve critical problems in very short time. Indeed, in this case, the product
is already designed, the CAD models are not necessarily available and the FE models might be tuned.
Thus, the product behaviour has to be studied and improved during its exploitation while prototyping
directly several alternate solutions. Such a framework also finds interest in the preliminary design
phases where alternative solutions have to be simulated. The algorithm first removes the intersecting
faces in an n-ring neighbourhood so that the filling of the created holes produces triangles whose sizes
smoothly evolve according to the possibly heterogeneous sizes of the surrounding triangles. The holefilling
algorithm is driven by an aspect ratio factor which ensures that the produced triangulation fits well
the FE requirements. It is also constrained by the boundaries of the groups of entities gathering together
the simulation semantic. The filled areas are then deformed to blend smoothly with the surroundings
meshes.