Patent ID: 8155929

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of computing normalized nodal displacement vectors, which change nodal coordinates of a finite element model in response to a change in a random variable, comprising: displaying the finite element model; providing a graphical user interface that receives user input applied to the displayed model in graphical form representing the following data: a region of the finite element model, the region having endpoints, and a displacement direction; calculating boundary segments and boundary segment endpoint displacements from the input data; For each segment, using the boundary segment endpoint displacements to compute displacements of border nodes of the segment, thereby providing a set of border node displacement vectors; Computing mean-value coordinates for each node of the region; Computing displacement vectors for each node of the region, based on the border node displacement vectors, the input data and the mean-value coordinates; normalizing the displacement vectors, thereby generating a set of normalized nodal displacement vectors; and Storing the normalized nodal displacement vectors for use as input to the finite element model.