Patent ID: 7590514

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of simulating inflation of an enclosed volume having a flexible boundary with simulated gas particles in a finite element analysis for assisting users in design of the enclosed volume, the method comprising: receiving, in a computer, a set of gas flow characteristics used for simulating the inflation of the enclosed volume and receiving a plurality of shell elements representing the flexible boundary; calculating a set of simulated gas particle properties from the set of gas flow characteristics; creating a number of new simulated gas particles based on the set of gas flow characteristics and the set of simulated gas particle properties, each of the new simulated gas particles is configured with a numerical kinetic energy having a translation component and a spinning-plus-vibration component, and said each of the new simulated gas particles is assigned an arbitrarily random direction towards the flexible boundary in the enclosed volume; tracking all of the simulated gas particles for detecting one or more collisions between a first and a second objects; calculating a simulated kinetic energy transfer between the first and second objects, when one of the first and second objects is one of the shell elements, the simulated kinetic energy transfer causes a portion of the inflation; updating a current simulation time; and when the current simulation time has not reached a pre-defined total simulation time, repeating said creating, said tracking, said calculating the simulated kinetic energy transfer and said updating steps; otherwise when the current solution time has reached the pre-defined total simulation time, displaying, in a monitor coupled to the computer, results of said simulating the inflation of the enclosed volume as desired.