Direct modification of FE meshes preserving group information

Nowadays, the mainstream methodology for product behavior analysis and improvement relies on the fol-lowing steps: 1) conceptual solution proposal and CAD prototyping, 2) mesh model creation for Finite Element (FE) analysis, 3) preparation of complex mesh model as specification of semantic information for particular behavior study, 4) advanced FE simu-lation, 5) result analysis and optimization loops. The semantics relative to the simulation model are often associated to mesh entities through the use of so-called mesh groups. During the optimization phase, geometric modifications are generally performed on the CAD model. This requires a complete updating of the FE mesh model repeating all the above listed FE mesh preparation (re-creation of all the groups). In the present paper, we propose a new framework for CAD-less FE analysis. It comes to apply shape modi-fication operators directly to the FE mesh while ex-ploiting and maintaining the available FE semantic information. As a result, multiple steeps of the design process loop, as CAD and mesh model generation, mesh group creation, are avoided. In this paper, we focus on two 3D mesh modification operators: the planar cracking and the drillin