A new approach to the preparation of models for FE analyses. (14th March 2005) - Leon, J-C.
Most of the time, preparing a model for an FE analysis from a CAD model requires tedious tasks of geometric modelling to generate the component shape suited for that analysis. Detail removal and shape idealisation treatments are among the operations required to obtain the component shape for a given analysis. Here, it is intended to describe how an appropriate geometric model and a set of geometric operators may significantly improve the efficiency of the FE model preparation phase. The geometric model proposed is based on a polyhedral representation of a component associated to a set of three categories of operators enabling: skin detail removal, topological changes, manifold changes (dimension reduction). These operators are associated to mechanical data to control the component shape changes. The above sets of treatments also accept a large variety of data as input: tessellated models produced by CAD systems, digitised models or pre-existing finite element models.