An optimal design system for spot welding locations

An optimal design system using adaptive meshes for spot welding locations in shell structures has been developed. In order to find out the optimal spot welding locations, iterative finite element analysis is necessary. The optimization process also requires that every mesh employed should be as uniform as possible in its quality. For this purpose an h-version of adaptive meshing scheme based on a background mesh has been proposed. The background meshes ares constructed with quadrilateral elements on three-dimensional surfaces by using a domain decomposition method. Sample problems are solved to demonstrate the effectiveness and capability of the developed system. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.