HYBRID COMPUTATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH FOR THE STUDY AND OPTIMIZATION OF MECHANICAL COMPONENTS

Increased demands on the performance and efficiency of mechanical comp onents impose challenges on their engineering design and optimization, especially when new and more demanding applications must be developed in relatively short periods of time while satisfying design objective s, as well as cost and manufacturability. In addition, reliability and durability must be taken into consideration. As a consequence, effect ive quantitative methodologies, computational and experimental, should be applied in the study and optimization of mechanical components. Co mputational investigations enable parametric studies and the determina tion of critical engineering design conditions, while experimental inv estigations, especially those using optical techniques, provide qualit ative and quantitative information on the actual response of the struc ture of interest to the applied load and boundary conditions. We discu ss a hybrid experimental and computational approach for investigation and optimization of mechanical components. The approach is based on an alytical, computational, and experimental solutions (ACES) methodologi es in the form of computational, noninvasive optical techniques, and f ringe prediction (FP) analysis tools. Practical application of the hyb rid approach is illustrated with representative examples that demonstr ate the viability of the approach as an effective engineering tool for analysis and optimization. (C) 1998 Society of Photo-Optical Instrume ntation Engineers.[S0091-3286(98)00405-X].