CAD-Integrated Design and Analysis of Shell Structures

A new CAD-integrated design-through-analysis workflow for shell structures, named Analysis in Computer Aided Design (AiCAD), is presented. In contrast to existing workflows AiCAD uses the CAD geometry description throughout the entire workflow. The usage of CAD models for structural analysis requires an appropriate analysis technique. A new finite element method (FEM) is thus developed for this purpose, called isogeometric B-Rep analysis (IBRA). IBRA uses the newly developed B-Rep elements to handle discontinuous and trimmed geometries with gaps and overlaps for structural analysis.