This paper on "Automated Evaluation of Complex Welded Structures" was presented at the NAFEMS World Congress on Effective Engineering Analysis - 25-28 April 1999, Newport, Rhode Island, USA.

Summary

Reviewing finite element stress results for complex welded structures is typically a time consuming and tedious process. Yet many of the process steps require minimal engineering judgment or are standardized within an organization and, thus, are candidates for automation. To that end, a procedure has been developed which automatically identifies a limited number of critical locations in a large model. In this way, the analyst's attention is drawn to the areas of interest, and he/she is provided with information needed to make decisions regarding the quality of the model, the stress and strain levels, and fatigue lives for common load scenarios. The procedure also summarizes comparisons to related locations in the current model and in previously analyzed models which represent variations of the structure or loads. Possible extensions to the procedure for other modeling and analysis situations are also discussed in this paper.