This paper was produced for the 2019 NAFEMS World Congress in Quebec Canada

Resource Abstract

Iso Geometric Analysis (IGA), is maturing and becoming capable to be incorporated in industrial applications. Widely used in the automotive industry for crash analysis, LS-DYNA [1] is the first commercial solver to provide IGA features. Better accuracy and shorter run times, make IGA effective for crash analysis. Nevertheless, the complexity of the current automotive models and the maturity of the already established methods and processes require the development of the respective IGA tools and processes to reach and exceed the current levels of effectiveness. The new technical challenges give the opportunity for new solutions and improvements in engineering simulation technology.



In simulation, the main quest is to reproduce the real physical problem achieving the highest possible accuracy. In general, two main categories of errors can be identified. The first one is the representation of the actual physical domain in a discrete space in order to solve the differential equations. The second is the modelling of external and internal phenomena with the appropriate differential equations. IGA is an excellent technology that really diminish the first type of error. Our goal is to easily integrate IGA alongside FEM in the modelling workflow. To achieve this, the pre- processor should import the same CAD file as the initial geometric representation of the physical domain.



Over the last decade simulations using IGA produced good results. The physical domain used in most scientific research papers so far, could be considered as fairly simple compared to real industrial applications.