Manufacturing Considerations and Structural Optimization for Automotive Components 2002-01-1242

Structural optimization techniques are more and more used in the design of automotive structures and components. Manufacturing considerations have always been an obstacle to use optimization techniques in a more efficient way. This paper presents to distinguished techniques to include manufacturability in the optimization process. The first technique described is a manufacturing constraint for topology optimization. The second one is the use of topology optimization to reduce the number of spot welds in a vehicle.