Supporting Simulations to Guide Engineering Design

Although computer-aided engineering (CAE) technologies are a critical component to the engineering design process, their effective integration into design processes continues to be awkward. This has been particularly true of more advanced simulation technologies such as finite element analysis. Developments over the past decade on technologies like the automatic generation of finite element mesh, and other analysis discretizations, directly from solid model representations [1,8] provide one of the tools to allow the effective use of simulation during design. However, a number of additional capabilities and structures are needed to truly integrate the simulation technologies into engineering design.