Integration of a Structural Mechanics Module (SMM) into a Collaborative Engineering Platform

Abstract

In many areas of mechanical engineering, parts and assemblies are designed iteratively with increasing levels of detail and sophistication. It is common that conceptual designs lead to preliminary designs with coarse geometric descriptions. Furthering these designs necessitates initial structural mechanical assessments. This work describes how existing software/tool platforms for low-fidelity design may be systematically enriched by fully-fledged Computational Structural Mechanic (CSM) capabilities. By means of this enhancement, it is possible to evolve the designs based on sound CSM criteria, increasing the fidelity levels of the designs. Strong focus is put on automation. This paper reaches out to a broad audience seeking efficient CSM processes applicable to their specific contexts. A particular software serves as a continuous example for the description of practical CSM related needs in early design stages. As the authors work in the field of aero-engine design, the Gas Turbine Laboratory (GTlab) showcases how general collections of tools or collaborative engineering platforms of any engineering domain may be equipped with CSM processes. More specifically, it is assumed that a software framework (be it a loose collection of tools or a well-integrated platform) exists that may yield conceptual designs of parts, assemblies or whole machinery. These concepts are usually based on elementary assessments such as sketches, efficiency estimations, major requirement specifications, thermodynamic cycles, or plain experience. Furthermore, the framework is assumed to also yield rough geometric designs of major components, considering e.g. installation space, mass constraints, constructive solid geometry, 'œ3D inflations' of 1D or 2D sketches, etc. but without considerations of non-trivial structural mechanics. Refinement of such coarse designs usually requires CSM assessments such as static integrity, modal behavior, or safety factors for different materials. This paper is about the software design of modules that provide such CSM capabilities. Structural Mechanical Modules (SMMs) of engineering platforms pose a number of challenges to software developers. The authors have gained experience with the development of an SMM in the context of turbomachinery and would like to make this experience available to general developers of SMMs of other engineering disciplines. Five major requirements are placed on SMMs: 1. Automation 2. Embedding of proven external tools, preferably but not exclusively Open Source Software (OSS) 3. Usability for CSM non-experts 4. Sustainability (i.e. maintainability, extendibility and quality assurance) 5. Reliability (regarding the results) Fulfilling these requirements inevitably leads to questions of the specific software design. A comprehensive list of practical SMM design challenges is given: 1. Re-use vs. re-develop legacy in-house tools 2. Modularization vs. integration 3. Usability and User Experience (UUX) 4. Choices of external tools for meshing, mapping, finite element analysis, etc. 5. Data formats and interoperability 6. Testing State-of-the-art possible solutions are transparently discussed for each challenge. The authors state the choices they made in their respective use-case, give the reasoning behind these choices, and advocate for certain general SMM architectures and designs.