Visualized CAD models of objects made of a multiphase perfect material

Abstract

A component, which has a perfect combination of different materials (including homogeneous materials and different types of heterogeneous materials) in its different portions for a specific application, is considered as the component made of a multiphase perfect material. After design of such a component according to the requirements from a specific application, a CAD model for representing it should be built so that its further analysis and manufacturing can be implemented based on the model. According to a new modeling method, this paper further presents the approaches of retrieving and visualizing all the necessary information of each layer of a component from its CAD model. The information includes: (1) 2D geometric boundary of each material region on each layer; (2) volume fraction of each material constituent for each position in each material region; and (3) 2D geometric boundaries of void phases of base cells in material regions with a periodic microstructure. Finally, two examples are given to demonstrate both geometric and material information on the layers, thus verifying the proposed approach. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.