Morphological analysis for product design

Analysis plays a significant role during product design. Thanks to computational tools; it contributes highly in product optimisation while decreasing design cost and time. For analysis applications, the adaptation of the product geometry is required and consists of producing an idealised model out of a product solid one. This paper presents a form of features based tool to aid the integration of analysis during the design process. It allows producing an analysis model out of a part solid model. This tool is based on a morphological analysis of the solid model followed by a two-phase process: simplification and idealisation. The tool provides an easy way to make computer-aided design model modifications implied by the analysis results; thanks to features parameterisation and a reconstruction process. Both allow us to create a solid model on the basis of the idealised one, by using parameterised reconstruction operators. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.