Search Results

With the rising cost of fuels in addition to stricter emission standards, modern vehicles ought to be more fuel efficient. The best approach to increase fuel efficiency is to reduce the mass of vehicles. In order to produce light weight components for vehicles, topology optimization (TO) is now widely used by designers. However, the raw results obtained from TO cannot be manufactured directly and require significant reinterpretation to be able to be manufactured using traditional manufacturing processes. By considering the manufacturing process outside of TO, a sub-optimal design is obtained. The consideration of process specific manufacturing constraints within the TO ensures that a more optimal design will be produced. Previously the complex designs produced by TO have been a barrier to its implementation as the components cannot be produced without excessive costs. By coupling manufacturing constraints with TO more optimal designs can be obtained.

Increasing fuel prices and escalating emissions standards, are leading car manufacturers to develop vehicles with higher fuel efficiency. Reducing the mass of the vehicle is one technique to improve fuel efficiency. Shifting from metals to composite materials is a promising approach for great reductions to the vehicle mass. As more composite parts are introduced into vehicles, the approach to joining components is changing and requiring more investigation. Metallic chassis components are traditionally joined with mechanical fasteners, while composites are generally joined with adhesives. In a collaboration between Queen’s University and KCarbon, an automotive composite crossmember is being developed. A variety of lap joint geometries were modeled into a the crossmember assembly for composite-composite joints. Finite element-based optimization methods were applied to reduce mass of the crossmember. The optimized masses showed a 5% difference between the three joint geometries analyzed

Evolving fuel efficiency and emissions standards, along with consumer demand for performance, are strong pressures for light-weighting of performance oriented motorcycles. The field of topology optimization (TO), with the extension of multi-material topology optimization (MMTO) provide manufacturers with advanced structural light-weighting methodology. TO methodology has been adopted in many industries, including automotive where light-weighting assists in meeting efficiency regulations. The development of process specific manufacturing constraints within MMTO is a critical step in increasing adoption within industries dealing with manufacturing cost restrictions. This capability can decrease design complexity, lowering manufacturing costs of optimization solutions. A conventional all-aluminum perimeter style motorcycle chassis is analyzed to develop baseline compliance (total strain energy) metrics.

With the recent push for electrification, automotive engineers are constantly striving to improve efficiency and performance of vehicle concepts. Although multiple vehicle attributes affect range, the overall mass of the vehicle plays a significant role. Computational tools such as topology optimization (TO) have long been utilized in industry to reduce mass while meeting structural design constraints. Over time, TO methods have been extended from traditional single material topology optimization (SMTO) to advanced methods such as multi-material topology optimization (MMTO). These advanced computational tools provide more design freedom in the conceptual design phase to develop superior load paths not possible with SMTO. However, MMTO is limited by the assumption of perfect joining between dissimilar materials, requiring manual re-interpretation to develop manufacturable designs.

The field of topology optimization (TO) has been evolving rapidly, notably due to the emergence of multi-material topology optimization (MMTO) algorithms. These developments follow the establishment of TO tools within industry, which has been accelerated and promoted through the introduction of various manufacturing constraints within algorithms. The integration of manufacturing constraints within MMTO is critical for promoting industry usage and adoption of these new software algorithms, as current usage of MMTO is dissuaded by the typically complex design solutions. The presented MMTO implementation is an extension of classical single-material topology optimization (SMTO). The TO problem is expanded to consider both material existence and selection, solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) is utilized for material interpolation.

As demand for fuel efficiency rises, an increasing number of automotive companies are replacing their existing metal designs with carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) redesigns. Due to the handling and manufacturing processes associated with CFRP materials, engineers have more design freedom to create complex, light-weight designs, which would be infeasible to manufacture using metal. Additionally, it is likely that by redesigning with CFRP, many steel assemblies can be consolidated to significantly fewer parts, simplifying or potentially eliminating the assembly process. When designing an automotive crossmember using CFRP materials, designers often aim for a two-piece design (top and bottom), while utilizing reinforcement material where needed. The joining of these two pieces is typically accomplished with many mechanical fasteners and adhesives, significantly increasing the part count and the manufacturing complexity.

As additive manufacturing technology advances, it is becoming a more feasible option for fabricating highly complex, lightweight structures in the automotive industry. To take advantage of the improved design freedom and to reduce support structures for the selected printing orientation, components must be designed specifically for additive manufacturing. A new approach for accomplishing this process combines topology and build orientation optimization, which aims to simultaneously determine the ideal build direction and component design to maximize stiffness and reduce additive manufacturing costs. Current techniques in literature are formulated for specific categories of additive manufacturing: either methods that print on a support structure raft or print directly on the build plate. However, these two categories have very different relationships between part orientation and support structure, resulting in distinct optimal orientations for each additive manufacturing category.