High-level operations dedicated to the integration of mechanical analysis within a design process

Abstract

Here we present the high-level operators of the Mechanical Analysis Module, which is a software architecture dedicated to a better integration of the structural analysis phase within an integrated Computer-Aided Design environment. This generic module is independent of the mechanical analysis method used, and takes place in a distributed software architecture of an integrated design environment. The paper shows that the mechanical operators defined are split among geometric and mechanical treatments in order to enforce this distributed architecture. Thus, the interface between the geometric treatments and the mechanical analysis environment shows the adequacy of the boolean operators when used with mechanical analysis treatments. However, this is demonstrated for a restricted domain of the mechanical analysis, and open ended questions still exist as to when the geometry of the models is diversified. Also, requirements for new geometric treatments and extensions of the current geometric representation are listed.