Integrating Design Process Knowledge With CAD Models

Author(s):  
Erik E. Hayes ◽  
William C. Regli

Abstract Solid models are static entities, often defined by boundary representation models as sets of enclosing surfaces. Constructive Solid Geometry and feature-based computer-aided design environments create procedural descriptions of 3D objects in forms of history or CSG trees. These representations are temporally fixed, i.e., they describe the state of an object at a point in time. This paper describes a method to represent and capture temporal evolution of solid models — what we call model process history. We define process history to be all states of a model — the search space of design process. This paper presents a representational formalism we call model process graphs (MPGs). We use MPGs to integrate a model’s description with a model of temporal changes that occur during the design process. We believe that MPG representations can have valuable application for many design and manufacturing problems. The paper describes our preliminary results to use MPGs to (1) create a record of design process; (2) store process-based design rationale; (3) represent in-process shapes for machined artifacts. We anticipate that similar structures will find application in other design and manufacturing problems where important process knowledge is embodied by temporal changes occurring in model evolution.

Author(s):  
Andreas Apostolatos ◽  
Altuğ Emiroğlu ◽  
Shahrokh Shayegan ◽  
Fabien Péan ◽  
Kai-Uwe Bletzinger ◽  
...  

AbstractIn this study the isogeometric B-Rep mortar-based mapping method for geometry models stemming directly from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is systematically augmented and applied to partitioned Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) simulations. Thus, the newly proposed methodology is applied to geometries described by their Boundary Representation (B-Rep) in terms of trimmed multipatch Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) discretizations as standard in modern CAD. The proposed isogeometric B-Rep mortar-based mapping method is herein extended for the transformation of fields between a B-Rep model and a low order discrete surface representation of the geometry which typically results when the Finite Volume Method (FVM) or the Finite Element Method (FEM) are employed. This enables the transformation of such fields as tractions and displacements along the FSI interface when Isogeometric B-Rep Analysis (IBRA) is used for the structural discretization and the FVM is used for the fluid discretization. The latter allows for diverse discretization schemes between the structural and the fluid Boundary Value Problem (BVP), taking into consideration the special properties of each BVP separately while the constraints along the FSI interface are satisfied in an iterative manner within partitioned FSI. The proposed methodology can be exploited in FSI problems with an IBRA structural discretization or to FSI problems with a standard FEM structural discretization in the frame of the Exact Coupling Layer (ECL) where the interface fields are smoothed using the underlying B-Rep parametrization, thus taking advantage of the smoothness that the NURBS basis functions offer. All new developments are systematically investigated and demonstrated by FSI problems with lightweight structures whereby the underlying geometric parametrizations are directly taken from real-world CAD models, thus extending IBRA into coupled problems of the FSI type.


Author(s):  
A. Z. Qamhiyah ◽  
B. Benhabib ◽  
R. D. Venter

Abstract Many of today’s concurrent product-development cycles depend on the utilization of intelligent Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems. Thus, it would be essential to provide CAD users with effective means for interacting with the CAD system and its database. This paper addresses the development of a boundary-based coding procedure for CAD models. Coding the geometric and processing characteristics of objects, based on their CAD model representation, has been long recognized as an effective approach that allows convenient design retrieval on the one hand and process-planning automation on the other. Our work is based on the assumption that form features are recognizable and extractable from the CAD model by current feature-recognition, feature extraction and feature-based-design approaches. The coding procedure is applicable to the boundary representation of the object and its extracted form features.


Author(s):  
Jack Chang ◽  
Mark Ganter ◽  
Duane Storti

Abstract Computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems intended to support automated design and manufacturing applications such as shape generation and solid free-form fabrication (SFF) must provide not only methods for creating and editing models of objects to be manufactured, but also methods for interrogating the models. Interrogation refers to any process that derives information from the model. Typical interrogation tasks include determine surface area, volume or inertial properties, computing surface points and normals for rendering, and computing slice descriptions for SFF. While currently available commercial modeling systems generally employ a boundary representation (B-rep) implementation of solid modeling, research efforts have considered implicit modeling schemes as a potential source of improved robustness. Implicit implementations are available for a broad range of modeling operations, but interrogation operations have been widely considered too costly for many applications. This paper describes a method based on interval analysis for interrogating implicit solid models that aims at achieving both robustness and efficiency.


Author(s):  
Aditya Balu ◽  
Sambit Ghadai ◽  
Soumik Sarkar ◽  
Adarsh Krishnamurthy

Abstract Computer-aided Design for Manufacturing (DFM) systems play an essential role in reducing the time taken for product development by providing manufacturability feedback to the designer before the manufacturing phase. Traditionally, DFM rules are hand-crafted and used to accelerate the engineering product design process by integrating manufacturability analysis during design. Recently, the feasibility of using a machine learning-based DFM tool in intelligently applying the DFM rules have been studied. These tools use a voxelized representation of the design and then use a 3D-Convolutional Neural Network (3D-CNN), to provide manufacturability feedback. Although these frameworks work effectively, there are some limitations to the voxelized representation of the design. In this paper, we introduce a new representation of the computer-aided design (CAD) model using orthogonal distance fields (ODF). We provide a GPU-accelerated algorithm to convert standard boundary representation (B-rep) CAD models into ODF representation. Using the ODF representation, we build a machine learning framework, similar to earlier approaches, to create a machine learning-based DFM system to provide manufacturability feedback. As proof of concept, we apply this framework to assess the manufacturability of drilled holes. The framework has an accuracy of more than 84% correctly classifying the manufacturable and non-manufacturable models using the new representation.


Author(s):  
Yogesh H. Kulkarni ◽  
Anil Sahasrabudhe ◽  
Mukund Kale

Computer-aided design (CAD) models of thin-walled solids such as sheet metal or plastic parts are often reduced dimensionally to their corresponding midsurfaces for quicker and fairly accurate results of computer-aided engineering (CAE) analysis. Computation of the midsurface is still a time-consuming and mostly, a manual task due to lack of robust and automated techniques. Most of the existing techniques work on the final shape (typically in the form of boundary representation, B-rep). Complex B-reps make it hard to detect subshapes for which the midsurface patches are computed and joined, forcing usage of hard-coded heuristic rules, developed on a case-by-case basis. Midsurface failures manifest in the form of gaps, overlaps, nonmimicking input model, etc., which can take hours or even days to correct. The research presented here proposes to address these problems by leveraging feature-information available in the modern CAD models, and by effectively using techniques like simplification, abstraction, and decomposition. In the proposed approach, first, the irrelevant features are identified and removed from the input FbCAD model to compute its simplified gross shape. Remaining features then undergo abstraction to transform into their corresponding generic Loft-equivalents, each having a profile and a guide curve. The model is then decomposed into cellular bodies and a graph is populated, with cellular bodies at the nodes and fully overlapping-surface-interfaces at the edges. The nodes are classified into midsurface-patch generating nodes (called “solid cells” or sCells) and interaction-resolving nodes (“interface cells” or iCells). In a sCell, a midsurface patch is generated either by offset or by sweeping the midcurve of the owner-Loft-feature's profile along with its guide curve. Midsurface patches are then connected in the iCells in a generic manner, thus resulting in a well-connected midsurface with minimum failures. Output midsurface is then validated topologically for correctness. At the end of this paper, real-life parts are used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.


Author(s):  
Karthik Viswanathan ◽  
Sagar Chowdhury ◽  
Zahed Siddique

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is used extensively during mechanical product design, which involves creating 3D models of components and then assembling them into modules and systems. Methods and tools to compare components and identify a common platform using these 3D CAD models of components would facilitate faster specification of product family architecture. Hence, there is a need to develop means for comparing component geometry, in order to identify the common and distinct features, determine component commonality, and identify a common platform for the set of components. This paper presents an approach to determine geometric commonality between components from their 3D solid models. The approach consists of performing a pair-wise comparison between components. To measure commonality for a pair of components, first all feature-pair’s dimensions and positions are measured, which then combined to give the overall component-pair commonality.


Author(s):  
Cong Hong Phong Nguyen ◽  
Young Choi

The lightweight representation of three-dimensional computer-aided design (3D CAD) models has drawn much attention from researchers as its usefulness in collaborative product development is vast. Existing approaches are mostly based on feature depression or mesh-based simplification. In this article, a new approach for 3D CAD lightweight representation based on combining triangular mesh representation and boundary representation (B-rep) is proposed. The corresponding data structure as well as the conversion method from original data given in B-rep was developed. Considered as an essential application in collaborative product development, a case study on the visualization process of large-scale assembly models represented in the proposed lightweight representation was also conducted. The validation of the approach was performed via experiments with 3D CAD models in SAT format and by benchmarking with the conventional all-faceted approach with the same level of mesh resolution.


Author(s):  
Kuang-Hua Chang ◽  
Javier Silva

Abstract Design changes are frequently encountered in the product development process. The complexity of the design changes is multiplied when the product design involves multiple engineering disciplines. Very often, a simple change in one part may propagate to its neighboring parts, therefore, affects the entire product assembly. Both parts and assembly must be regenerated for a physically valid product model, at the same time, the regenerated product model must meet designer’s expectations. When a product is being developed in a Concurrent Design and Manufacturing (CDM) environment, the design changes are usually implemented first by altering geometry of the product represented in computer-aided design (CAD) solid models. If the product solid model is not parameterized properly, the changes in geometry often lead to invalid parts or assembly. At the part level, the changes may yield a solid model with invalid geometric features if it is not properly parameterized. In this case, the entire product assembly is in vain. Even when individual parts of the product are regenerated correctly, parts may still penetrate to their neighboring parts or leave excessive gaps among them, if the solid model is not properly parameterized at the assembly level. In this paper, solid modeling and assembly techniques implemented in two major CAD tools, Pro/ENGINEER and SolidWorks, will be discussed. A set of guidelines will be proposed for the designers to parameterize the solid models in order to capture the design intents more effectively in the product virtual mockup. These guidelines at both part and assembly levels will support designers to successfully conduct product design in the CDM environment. A number of examples, including a slider-crank mechanism and its crankshaft, a single-piston airplane engine and its components, as well as a number of simpler parts are presented to illustrate and demonstrate the parameterization method and guidelines proposed for both Pro/ENGINEER and SolidWorks.


Author(s):  
Moritz Weber ◽  
Reiner Anderl

AbstractThe high complexity of assemblies and components in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) leads to a high effort in the maintenance of the models and increases the time required for adjustments. Metrics indicating the complexity of a CAD Model can help to reduce it by showing the results of changes. This paper describes a concept to calculate metrics aiming to describe the extent of complexity of components in CAD systems based on an ontology-based representation in a first step. The representation is initially generated from CAD models using an automated process. This includes both a boundary representation and the history of the feature-based design. Thus, the design strategy also contributes to measuring the complexity of the component so that the same shape can lead to different complexity metrics. Semantic rules are applied to find patterns of the design and to identify and evaluate various strategies. Different metrics are proposed to indicate the particular influence factors of complexity and a single measure for the overall complexity. Furthermore, the influencing factors can also be used to allow the designer to see how to reduce the complexity of the component or assembly.


Author(s):  
Robert Kirkwood ◽  
James A. Sherwood

Abstract Computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing/computer-aided engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) integration offers designers, analysts, and manufacturers the opportunity to share the data throughout the product development process. Finite element (FE) meshing applications integrated with the solid model data from CAD systems represent a major subset of CAD/CAM/CAE integration. In an earlier paper, it was demonstrated that virtual persistent identifiers (VPIs) can be used to assure or repair sustained integration with successive versions of neutral-format solid models. From that article, several follow-on issues become apparent. The geometry as per the CAE model often differs from the CAD model, so even with cross-format issues resolved, significant obstacles to sustained CAD/CAE integration remain. Along with simplification, the current article investigates additional techniques for further automating the recognition of changes between CAD models, reducing the manual interaction to just a few minutes. The article goes on to demonstrate how associativity can be sustained when using current versions of neutral formats like STEP and IGES. The overall point of the paper is to show that given a precise recognition of the differences between two solid models, a generalized means of ad-hoc integration is possible. This point is demonstrated through two case studies where simplifications of the CAD geometry are made to facilitate the meshing of the part. The integration is shown to be maintained across successive versions and to address a range of simplification processing. A summary of best practices for efficiently accommodating sustained CAD/CAE integration is also presented.


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