Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for analyzing the structural response of an object having an outer surface comprising a plurality of surface portions, the method including: forming a three dimensional model of said object, said model comprising a surface mesh representative of said outer surface and comprising a plurality of eccentric shell elements, wherein each of said elements is defined by a plurality of nodes on said surface and each of said nodes has one or more degrees of freedom; assigning to each of said elements a thickness indicative of half of the thickness of said object at said respective element; defining, for each of said elements, a reference surface that includes the nodes of said respective element and that is coincident with said surface mesh at said respective element; for a pair of opposed portions of said surface, establishing a constraining relationship between said degrees of freedom of each of said nodes on the first of said opposed portions and said degrees of

Abstract: A method is provided for simulating fluid flow within a three dimensional object having first and second generally opposed surfaces. The method includes: matching each element of the first surface with an element of the second surface between which a reasonable thickness may be defined, wherein matched elements of the first surface constitute a first set of matched elements and matched elements of the second surface constitute a second set of matched elements, specifying a fluid injection point, and performing a flow analysis using each set of the matched elements. In this way, the injection point is linked to all locations on the first and second surfaces from which flow may emanate such that resulting flow fronts along the first and second surfaces are synchronized.