Qualitative behavioral reasoning from components’ interfaces to components’ functions for DMU adaption to FE analyses

A digital mock-up (DMU), with its B-Rep model of product components, is a standard industrial representation that lacks geometric information about interfaces between components. Component shapes reflect common engineering practices that influence component interfaces with interferences and not only contacts.The proposed approach builds upon relationships between function, behavior, and shape to derive functional information from the geometry of component interfaces. Among these concepts, the concept of behavior is more difficult to set up and connect to the geometry of interfaces and functions. Indeed, states and design rules are introduced to express the behavior of components through a qualitative reasoning process. This reasoning process, in turn, takes advantage of domain knowledge rules and facts, checking the validity of certain hypotheses that must hold true all along a specific state of the product’s lifecycle, such as operational, stand-by or relaxed states. Eliminating configurations that contradict one or more of those hypotheses in their corresponding reference state reduces ambiguity, subsequently producing functional information in a bottom-up manner.This bottom-up process starts with the generation of a conventional interfaces graph (CIG) with components as nodes, and conventional interfaces (CIs) as arcs. A CI is initially defined by a geometric interaction that can be a contact or an interference between two components. CIs are then populated with functional interpretations (FIs) according to their geometric properties, producing potentially many combinations. A first step of the reasoning process, the validation against reference states, reduces the number of FIs per CI.Domain knowledge rules are then applied again to group semantics of component interfaces into one functional designation per component to connect together geometric entities of its boundary with its function.

► Geometric interfaces of components are combined through qualitative reasoning.
► This combination deduces the component’s behavior and derives its function.
► This reasoning process builds upon shape/function and shape/kinematic dualities.
► Geometric models of components are structured to automate model preparation for FEA.
► Using semantic reasoners, higher-level components’ functions are deduced.