Solid Model Generation of Complex Heritage Objects Used in Meshless Finite Element Analysis

• Main Author: Luigi Barazzetti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Heritage
• Subjects: digitization; B-rep; meshless FEA; organic shape; quad-mesh; T-splines
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/3/3/35

This paper presents a workflow for B-rep solid model generation of organic objects using T-splines constructed with quad-meshes. The aim is the creation of geometrically and topologically consistent B-rep solid models of heritage objects featuring organic shapes, which can be used in numerical simulation based on meshless finite element analysis. Point clouds and closed triangular meshes are converted into B-rep solids with a multi-step procedure based on the preliminary extraction of quadrilateral meshes, which are used to produce T-splines. Evaluation of metric quality is carried out to quantify the difference between the final solid and input datasets. A coarse-to-fine approach can also be exploited by varying the quad-mesh resolution to preserve the level of details captured during the digitization process. Finally, meshless finite element analysis can be run with the produced solid bodies. Results for both simulated and real heritage objects are illustrated and discussed.