Form-Finding of Architectural Membranes in a CAD-Environment Using the AiCAD-Concept

In the design process of membrane structures, the gap between design and analysis becomes one of the main challenges, since these structures require consistent interaction between both disciplines. This gap between engineering and design can often be identified between the environments in use, CAD and CAE. Various approaches to this problem have been proposed up to now, mainly focussing on easier and faster bridging of the gap. In the present contribution, a novel approach called Analysis in CAD (AiCAD) is proposed, which aims on omitting this gap instead of only reducing it. Therefore, all analyses are performed on the augmented CAD model without the need for a separate, specialized model for the structural analysis. In order to perform the analyses on this NURBS-based B-Rep model, the Isogeometric B-Rep Analysis (IBRA) has been developed. The application to the form-finding of architectural membranes demonstrates the concept and its implementation as a plugin to Rhinoceros 5. This implementation and the application to form-finding can be seen as prototypes, since the AiCAD approach is very general and can be applied to all fields of analysis and design.