A FEM-Formulation for Virtual Reality Applications

Primljeno (Received): 2011-10-10 Prihvaćeno (Accepted): 2011-12-20 Original scientific paper Virtual reality (VR), as a novel technology, represents one of the most powerful tools to assist or even play the major role in many areas, such as development of new designs, training medical practitioners or assembly operators, entertaining industry, etc. On the other hand, the finite element method (FEM) imposed itself as an essential technical support for the needs of computing flexible bodies’ deformational behavior. FEM together with CAD are important ingredients of VR. In the VR applications that imply interactive simulations with flexible bodies included, the efficiency of FEM formulations is of crucial importance. The paper presents a co-rotational FEM-formulation developed to meet the needs of simulating geometrically nonlinear deformational behavior at interactive frame rates. It is presented here in combination with a rather simple linear tetrahedral element. The formulation is enriched with a coupled-mesh technique to enable the usage of rougher FEM models to compute deformational behavior of complex geometries. The advantages of an iterative solver and the solution procedure for both static and dynamic analyses are discussed.