Design-in-context: exploiting the increasing accessibility of global FE models to improve the mechanical design process of engineering subsystems

Abstract

The established component structural design process is based on evaluations of high fidelity FE models of the local structure while incorporating estimates of the structural behaviour of the rest of the engine in the form of free body loads and displacements. However, these boundary conditions become invalid once a design change is made, and to update them involves a lengthy validation procedure where a coarse mesh of the proposed component design is generated and subsequently integrated into a low fidelity model of the whole engine. In the present work, the existing component design process is improved through a combination of exploiting new finite element modelling technologies, a resourceful use of multi-fidelity surrogate modelling methods, and taking concepts from concurrent design methods, to develop a set of reliable and efficient distributed design strategies. A novel component design-in-context method is proposed to enable components to design directly with respect to physical constraints in the residual system using information from embedded global FE models. The method is found to reduce the degree of system-level infeasibility for an engine component that is designed in isolation by up to 2.7%, with only a moderate 11% increase in simulation cost. A novel safe integration method which is based on a system-level surrogate model augmented with a confidence level is also developed. The method is able to maintain high system level feasibility when multiple component design-in-context workflows are carried out concurrently, reducing the probability of rework by as much as 5%.

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Identifiers

ORCID for David Toal: orcid.org/0000-0002-2203-0302

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