Author(s)

Chenjun Lu, Jianming Zhang & Lei Han

Abstract

Welding seams are often omitted in stress analyses of a welded frame structure when using the finite element method. The boundary face method (BFM) makes direct use of the CAD data of a structure to perform stress analysis, and therefore has the potential to analyze a frame structure with all the welding seams taken into account. Tubular Y-joints are typical sub-structures of a frame. The CAD data of these Y-joints may contain geometric noises, which cause severe difficulties for meshing. This paper describes a method to clear automatically the possible geometric noises of a welded tubular Y-joint, so as to be easily meshed during the stress analysis process when using the BFM. The method uses Bsplines to remove geometric noises and to recover the topology, and allows direct access to the consistent topology and accurate geometry of the welded tubular Y-joint for 3D surface mesh generation. Several examples of automatic meshing on complex frames are presented to validate the proposed method. Keywords: uncracked tubular Y-joint, BFM, geometrical modeling, geometry noise.

Keywords

uncracked tubular Y-joint, BFM, geometrical modeling, geometry noise