Reasoning Boolean operation based modeling for heterogeneous objects

Abstract

A reasoning Boolean operation based CAD modeling approach applied to construct heterogeneous material objects is presented. This reasoning Boolean operation consists of a merging operation and an extracting operation, and it is executed according to the material-dominant information defined in the designed heterogeneous object database. In addition to the material-dominant Boolean union, subtraction, and intersection, a new Boolean complex_union operation is defined and introduced to the set of the reasoning Boolean operation. The Boolean complex_union 'assembles' the results of the material-dominant Boolean intersection and subtraction to form a new modeling assembly for the heterogeneous object. Due to the CAD-based nature, the thus formed heterogeneous model can be readily implemented with advanced CAD/CAE/CAM software for integrated design, analysis, and simulation. An example of such an application, its hierarchy of the model database, and the major steps of the model construction are described. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.