What Every Engineer Should Know about Computational Techniques of Finite Element Analysis

Designers need a way to overcome information-related risks, including information leakage and misuse by their own collaborators during collaborative product realization. Existing cryptographic techniques aimed at overcoming these information-related risks are computationally expensive and impractical even for moderate problem sizes, and legal approaches such as nondisclosure agreements are not effective. The computational practicality problem is particularly pronounced for computational techniques, such as the finite element analysis (FEA). In this paper, we propose a technique that enables designers to perform simulations, such as FEA computations, without the need for revealing their information to anyone, including their design collaborators. We present a new approach, the secure finite element analysis approach, which enables designers to perform FEA without having to reveal structural/material information to their counterparts even though the computed answer depends on all the collaborators' confidential information. We build secure finite element analysis (sFEA) using computationally efficient protocols implementing a secure codesign (SCD) framework. One of our findings is that the direct implementation of using SCD framework (termed as naïve sFEA) suffers from lack of scalability. To overcome these limitations, we propose hybrid sFEA that implements performance improvement strategies. We document and discuss the experiments we conducted to determine the computational overhead imposed by both naïve and hybrid sFEA. The results indicate that the computational burden imposed by hybrid sFEA makes it challenging for large-scale FEA—our scheme significantly increases the problem sizes that can be handled when compared to implementations using previous algorithms and protocols, but large enough problem sizes will swamp our scheme as well (in some sense this is unavoidable because of the cubic nature of the FEA time complexity).

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Computer-Aided Finite Element Analysis: Interfacing Symbolic and Numerical Computational Techniques

Computer-Based Automation ◽

10.1007/978-1-4684-7559-3_10 ◽

1985 ◽

pp. 203-212

Author(s):

Paul S. Wang

Keyword(s):

Finite Element Analysis ◽

Finite Element ◽

Computational Techniques ◽

Element Analysis ◽

Computer Aided

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True colours or red herrings?: colour maps for finite-element analysis in palaeontological studies to enhance interpretation and accessibility

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.211357 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Stephan Lautenschlager

Keyword(s):

Finite Element Analysis ◽

Finite Element ◽

Colour Vision ◽

Research Data ◽

Computational Techniques ◽

Discriminative Power ◽

Element Analysis ◽

Contour Plots ◽

Stress And Deformation ◽

External Forces

Accessibility is a key aspect for the presentation of research data. In palaeontology, new data is routinely obtained with computational techniques, such as finite-element analysis (FEA). FEA is used to calculate stress and deformation in objects when subjected to external forces. Results are displayed using contour plots in which colour information is used to convey the underlying biomechanical data. The Rainbow colour map is nearly exclusively used for these contour plots in palaeontological studies. However, numerous studies in other disciplines have shown the Rainbow map to be problematic due to uneven colour representation and its inaccessibility for those with colour vision deficiencies. Here, different colour maps were tested for their accuracy in representing values of FEA models. Differences in stress magnitudes (ΔS) and colour values (ΔE) of subsequent points from the FEA models were compared and their correlation was used as a measure of accuracy. The results confirm that the Rainbow colour map is not well suited to represent the underlying stress distribution of FEA models with other colour maps showing a higher discriminative power. As the performance of the colour maps varied with tested scenarios/stress types, it is recommended to use different colour maps for specific purposes.

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