GENERALIZATION OF TOPOLOGICAL SENSITIVITY AND ITS APPLICATION TO DEFEATURING

摘要

A particularly challenging problem in CAD/ CAE is the handling of small geometric details during finite element analysis (FEA). The presence of such details can significantly increase the computational complexity of FEA, while hindering its automation. Therefore, designers typically resort to defeaturing or detail removal, where the offending geometric details are suppressed prior to analysis. However, an inevitable consequence of defeaturing is that it can significantly alter the behavior of the CAE model. In this paper, we address the following question: Given the behavior of the defeatured CAE model, how does one estimate the behavior of the original (reference) CAE modeP In this paper, we extend the concept of topological sensitivity, and apply to defeaturing analysis, in the following sense. Classic topological sensitivity captures the first-order change in quantities of interest when small spherical holes are created within an existing geometry. Here, we consider an arbitrary cluster of small internal & boundary features, and provide a fundamental theory and specific algorithms to compute the net impact of deleting such features. The theory and algorithm are illustrated through numerical experiments.