PI: Tom Hughes, University of Texas.
Project Description:
Designs are encapsulated in CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems. Simulation is performed in FEA (Finite Element Analysis) systems. FEA requires the conversions of CAD descriptions to analysis-suitable formats leading to finite element meshes. The conversion process involves many steps, is tedious and labor intensive, and is the major bottleneck in the engineering design-through-analysis process, accounting for more than 80% of overall analysis time. This is a major impediment to the overall product development cycle of heavy-duty vehicles. The technical objectives are to develop and apply a new framework, simultaneously suitable for both design and analysis, and eliminate the CAD/FEA bottleneck thereby, and leverage this framework to develop fundamentally new and improved computational mechanics methodologies to facilitate the rapid design of lighter
weight, and therefore more fuel efficient, heavy-duty vehicles, that has been impossible within traditional FEA.