Application of 3D X-ray CT data sets to finite element analysis

摘要

Finite Element Modeling (FEM) is becoming more important as industry drives toward concurrent engineering. A fundamental hindrance to fully exploiting the power of FEM is the human effort required to acquire complex part geometry, particularly as-built geometry, as a FEM mesh. Many Quantitative Non Destructive Evaluation (QNDE) techniques that produce three-dimensional (3D) data sets provide a substantial reduction in the effort required to apply FEM to as-built parts. This paper describes progress at LLNL on the application of 3D X-ray computed tomography (CT) data sets to more rapidly produce high-quality FEM meshes of complex, as-built geometries. Issues related to the volume segmentation of the 3D CT data as well as the use of this segmented data to tailor generic hexahedral FEM meshes to part specific geometries are discussed. The application of these techniques to FEM analysis in the medical field is reported here.