An integrated system for design and analysis of multibody systems has been developed and is described in this paper. The use of the system is demonstrated through the example provided. The system consists of a commercially available CAD program and a multibody system analysis code developed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, These tools are integrated using a relational database, the structure of which was developed at Luleå University of Technology, in order to get a complete system for design and analysis of multibody systems. The main gains from the integrated system are the possibilities of using calculated component data like mass and moment of inertia from the CAD program in the simulation models, the automatic formulation of input files for the analysis code, and finally the visualization of simulation results using the surface data of the solid models. The interactive structured query language (ISQL) of the database management system provides the possibility of examining the components of the multibody system during the design work and before any simulation is performed.
This paper describes the application of a new global search technique, PGSL, that reduces structural costs for multi-storey timber housing. This technique is integrated within a computer aided design system that calculates production costs using a detailed product model. The cost calculation module was calibrated in collaboration with an industrial partner, and was tested on a full-scale completed project called Winter City 2000 in Sweden. It is found that the production cost for the shear-walls in the test case can be reduced by up to 10% due to an optimally directed search for structural designs. By using an explicit representation of the structural components in the shear-wall, it is also possible to increase the reliability of cost calculations.