RESEARCH FRONTIERS OF MODELING AND SIMULATION IN DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING

The main problems in the computerization of discrete goods production lie in the sheer complexity of developing scientific principles for fo rmalizing their design and manufacture. This paper first summarizes a broad framework for understanding the current state of technology usin g a (function, form, fabrication) triad. Geometric modeling of form pl ays a central role within this framework, and recent research results are presented in five related topics: 1) virtual design and manufactur ing, 2) massively parallel processing, 3) multi-representation free-fo rm modeling, 4) Numerical Control (NC) machining simulation and verifi cation, and 5) enterprise-wide integration. The paper concludes with e volving trends in network-centric computing, and its impact on manufac turing in the 21st century.