Patent ID: 8467997
Filing Date: 2013-06-18
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of creating numerically-simulated rigid bodies in finite element analysis (FEA) of a computer aided engineering system, said method comprising: defining, in a computer system having a FEA application module installed thereon, a FEA model having a plurality of nodal points and at least one rigid finite element, each of the at least one rigid finite element having a set of user defined information representing one or more physical quantities; creating an array of node flags each flag being associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of nodal points; initializing the array node flags with a initialized value that is invalid for identifying numerically-simulated rigid bodies; looping through said all of the at least one rigid finite element once, wherein at each currently-processed element in said looping, examining corresponding node flags of the currently-processed element's nodes; when said corresponding node flags contain only the initialized value, creating a new linked-list representing one of one or more numerically-simulated rigid bodies and labeled said new linked-list with the currently-processed element's ID and updating the corresponding node flags with the ID; when said corresponding node flags contain either the initialized value or a particular linked-list's ID, adding the currently-processed element to the particular linked-list and updating the corresponding node flags with the particular linked-list's ID; when said corresponding node flags contain more than one linked-lists' ID, merging all of the more than one linked-lists into one of the said more than one linked-lists as a newly-merged linked-list, updating the corresponding node flags with the newly-merged linked-list's ID; and calculating a set of physical properties of said each numerically-simulated rigid body in accordance with the set of user defined information corresponding each rigid finite element in said corresponding linked-list such that said each numerically-simulated rigid body is set up to be processed in the finite element analysis for assisting user to make decision in improvement of engineering product design.