Automated Finite Element Modeling of Tube Frame Structure Parametric Design

Abstract

This research was intended to address the last step in the development of a tube-frame (termed B2B) parametric crashworthiness model - automated finite element modeling of the parametric design. We have added the generation of finite element models to the previously built Unigraphics Version 16 (UG V16) parametric model, so that finite element models could be quickly built. UG/WAVE was used to design the vehicle parametrically and UG/SCENARIO, a pre- and post-processor integrated in UG, was used to automatically construct the finite element mesh. We established the quality of the finite element meshes, generated for two new designs, which were created by changing overall dimensions of the vehicle. This was done using objective criteria for the finite element mesh. The component data was added to the automatically generated mesh, and the results from the crashworthiness analysis of this model compared favorably with the ‘hand-built’ model using traditional model building techniques. The results from this work will be useful in the development of the parametric design process. The use of automatically generated finite element meshes will also be useful for the automated evaluation of these parametric designs.