Processes to Integrate Design With Downstream Applications Through Product Shapes Adaptation

In the aeronautics industry, various stages of a product development process such as physical phenomena (like stress, strain, and thermal ones) or virtual reality simulations are regarded as product views and based on different digital shapes of the same physical component. The shape adaptation processes needed to progress from one stage of the product development process to another one, the multiple shapes needed for a simulation at a given stage of this process are analyzed and shape adaptation operators are presented. Then, it is shown why geometric models adaptation processes from the design stage to downstream applications are important in an industrial design context, and why this is a concurrent engineering enabler. Subsequently, we show how shapes adaptation processes can be achieved through their appropriate formalization and representation using direct acyclic graphs connected to the scene structure of a simulation and the product structure used as input. A process data structure is also proposed to describe shape adaptation processes and ease their reuse. Finally, based on two EADS case studies, we illustrate how methods and criteria can be set up to produce adapted shapes from computer-aided design data in a controlled and integrated manner.