Super-element method applied to MIC to reduce simulation time of compliant assemblies

During the last twenty years, researchers proposed several methodologies mainly based on Finite Element Method (FEM) to solve tolerance analysis problems of compliant part assemblies. The entire literature was focused on the solving of assembly problems considering linear and non-linear phenomena due to thermal effects, residual stresses during assembly and so on. The computational efficiency to simulate compliant assemblies is an important aspect in the tolerance analysis problems. This work presents a method to reduce the simulation time involved in the tolerance analysis without reducing the number of elements used to discretise the geometry of the considered part. To verify the effectiveness of the new proposed method, in comparison with the methods of the literature, three assemblies were taken into account, the first constituted by two sheet metal parts, the second and the third constituted by two and three composite laminates respectively. The new method halves the simulation time compared to the existing approaches.