INSIST · Integrating Numerical Simulation and Geometric DesignTechnology

The objective of this ITN is to develop the next generation methods integrating numerical simulation and geometric design technology. Currently, geometric design and simulation is based on different geometry representation hampering the effective design of Engineering structures, materials and components. Isogeometric analysis developed recently tries to remove those drawbacks by integrating CAD shape functions, in particular NURBS, in numerical analysis.On the other hand, not all design models are based on CAD designs. In many applications, the geometric description is obtained from other data, e.g. CT-scans or surface models or point clouds generated by laser scanners, e.g. from clays models for automotive design. A classical application is reverse engineering, material characterization or computer supported materials design. The automatic image segmentation of CT-scans and the subsequent creation of the “design model” is far from simple. Voxel-based finite element analysis is commonly used in such applicationsThe analysis of an engineering object based on the simulation of some physical system usually requires the generation of a computational basis for a partial differential equation. Typically this discretization is based on a geometric mesh model or a set of nodes which determines local basis elements. The properties of these basis elements in relation to the partial differential equation are crucial to obtain good analysis results. Depending on the system simulated, different types of basis elements are required.In this ITN, we aim to provide a general framework of unifying pre-processing/design in general with numerical analysis. The framework will be applied to the most common and popular methods employed in pre-processing.design and analysis, i.e. spline-based basis functions (NURBS, T-splines, etc.), voxel-based finite elements, polynomial (standard) and spline-based finite elements and extended finite element and meshfree methods.