Automated CAD → FEA → TopOpt → CAD workflow

[mohdibntarek]

Description

Add support for an automated end-to-end workflow: import CAD geometry, generate FEA mesh, run topology optimization, and export the result back to CAD — with minimal manual intervention.

Context

Available in most major commercial CAE suites. This automation is essential for design teams that need to iterate quickly without deep expertise in each tool in the chain.

Scope

• Automated geometry cleanup and meshing from CAD import
• Problem setup from CAD-defined loads and constraints
• Optimization execution with sensible defaults
• Result reconstruction and export to CAD format
• Scriptable API for batch processing

Prepared with assistance from qwen3.6-plus via opencode.

[mohdibntarek]

Seminal References

• Olhoff & Bendsøe (1991) — "On CAD-integrated structural topology and design optimization" CMAME 89:1–24. DOI: 10.1016/0045-7825(91)90046-4
• Cuillière, François & Drouet (2014) — "Towards the integration of topology optimization into the CAD process" CAD&A 11(2):120–140. DOI: 10.1080/16864360.2014.846067
• Amroune, Cuillière & Drouet (2022) — "Automated lofting-based reconstruction of CAD models from 3D topology optimization results" Computer-Aided Design 145:103183. DOI: 10.1016/j.cad.2021.103183
• Kambampati et al. (2023) — "A CAD-aware plug-and-play topology optimization framework" SMO 66. DOI: 10.1007/s00158-023-03497-w

Prepared with assistance from qwen3.6-plus via opencode.