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STEP-BASED MODELING & SIMULATION FOR VIRTUAL
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Li Li, Tianyuan Xiao, Wenhui Fan, Hongbo Sun and Cheng Ma
National CIMS ERC, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Keywords: Virtual Product Development, HLA, STEP.
Abstract: A novel STEP-based modeling and simulation method is proposed to improve the data consistency and the
model reusability in Virtual Product Development (VPD). Based on the proposed method, a STEP-based
product model is automatically generated from STEP files and CAD/CAE models. In the method, besides
product shape data other effective data can be extracted from STEP files and CAD/CAE models for HLA-
based simulation. An applicable prototype system is designed to support this method. A case study is
performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the method.
1 INTRODUCTION
Virtual Product Development (VPD) is the process
of designing, analyzing product and developing
Virtual Prototype in digital environment. Nowadays,
product simulations within a single discipline cannot
satisfy requirements of VPD. High Level
Architecture (HLA) is a well-known standard for
distributed simulation (IEEE Computer Society,
2001). Adopting HLA, simulation systems in VPD
could reuse existing simulation models, and
integrate different kinds of multi-disciplinary
product simulation models in one simulation task.
However, HLA-based simulations cannot
completely meet requirements of VPD. Simulation
models in HLA-based simulation are usually
independently developed without using the upstream
product information. This cannot satisfy the demand
of data consistency in VPD, and reduces the
credibility of simulation results.
As an ISO standard (ISO 10303) which is widely
used in CAD/CAE/CAM/CAPP, STEP standard
(Technical Committee 184 Sub-Committee 4, 2002)
supports data exchange in many product
development domains. Adopting STEP standard into
VPD would facilitate the reuse of CAD model
information in HLA-based simulation, and enhance
data consistency in the whole process of VPD.
Nowadays, the most representative projects
which use STEP standard to build product models
for data exchange are the Model Based Definition
(MBD) project which is proposed by Boeing (Chen
et al., 2009) and the Share-A-Share project designed
by Eurostep (Shaw, 2009). But in these projects,
STEP-based product model is mainly addressed to
resolve the problem of CAD/PDM data exchange of
complex product, and do not contain the simulation
data that are useful for multi-disciplinary
simulations. Hunten (1997) describes an approach of
CAD/FEA integration with AP209. Thurman and
Benda (2009) built a model-based enterprise
environment with AP210. The above two researches
mainly focus on information integration with single
AP, and it makes these approaches hard to extend to
other simulation domains. Li et al. (2008) define a
STEP AP203-based logical structure of a
mechatronic system using HLA, but the method of
converting STEP files to domain simulation models
is not described in details. Si et al. (2009) proposes
an application framework of Product Collaborative
Design. In this framework, STEP files are converted
into domain simulation models by specific software
interfaces. Using specific software interfaces limits
the framework for further use.
Based on the above reviews, this paper argues
that general STEP-based approach is not convenient
to be used in VPD, especially for HLA-based
simulations. A single application protocol can only
exchange data in single domain, and is lack of the
definitions of assembly constraints which are
indispensable for some specific simulation domains.
Furthermore, most researches mainly focus on the
information of product shape. Actually, there are
more useful information than product shape data
224
Li L., Xiao T., Fan W., Sun H. and Ma C..
STEP-BASED MODELING & SIMULATION FOR VIRTUAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.
DOI: 10.5220/0003596302240227
In Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH-2011), pages
224-227
ISBN: 978-989-8425-78-2
Copyright
c
2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)