Solid objects are commonly represented in computer-aided design (CAD) by describing their boundaries. This approach is commonly referred to as boundary representation (B-rep). While this approach offers broad flexibility and is well suited for digital designs, it is prone to several geometrical and topological flaws, making B-rep models not directly suitable for numerical analysis.
Producing an analysis-suitable model (mesh) from CAD designs is primarily a manual and lengthy process. Well-paid engineers need extensive efforts to manually fix geometrical flaws, accounting for more than 70% of the total time spent in the numerical analysis pipeline.
DirectFEM offers a solution skipping the expensive step and enabling direct simulations of flawed models. Our approach does not need a separate analysis-suitable model, tightening the design-through-analysis loop.
Our technology easily allows cost-effective simulations of early designs: a step that before was often too expensive and impractical.
Das Projekt DirectFEM wird im Rahmen des EXIST-Programms durch das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie und den Europäischen Sozialfonds gefördert.