Several research works have been focused on integrating FEA (finite-elements analysis)
with CAD (Computer Aided Design) over the last decade. In spite of the improvements
brought by this integration, research work remains to be done in order to better integrate
all the operations led during the design process. Until now, the communication between CAD
modules remains static. The design process involves several modifications of an initial
design solution. Consequently, there is a need for more flexible communications between
CAD modules through the design cycle. Some approaches have been developed in order to
reduce the design process length when using FEA, and to automate the transfer of part’s
data from one step of the process to the next one. Automatic re-meshing is one of these
approaches and it is based on automatically updating the part’s mesh around modifications
zones, in the case of a minor change in the part’s design, without the need to re-mesh the
entire part. The purpose of this paper is presenting a new tool, aiming at the improvement
of automatic re-meshing procedures. It basically consists in automatically identifying and
locating modifications between two CAD parts (typically an initial design and a modified
design). A major benefit of the approach presented here is that it is completely
independent of the description frame, which is made possible with the use of vector-based
geometric representations.