Increase Stiffness and Reduce Stress Through Topography Optimization Using GENESIS Structural Optimization for ANSYS (GSAM)
Product = GTAM/GSAM
Genesis® for Ansys® Mechanical (GSAM/GTAM) adds the power and versatility of Genesis® structural optimization capability to the ANSYS environment. Engineers can enlist the rich breadth of Genesis® optimizations, performing optimization data definition, solving, and post-processing all within the Ansys analysis systems. In this article, we would like to show it is very easy to set up a topography design in GSAM to optimize the performance of the structures.
Topography optimization is a special form of shape optimization which generates bead patterns or shape profiles on given design surfaces. In GSAM, the surface could come from a shell body or solid body. With topography optimization, the stiffness, frequency, or other performance targets could be optimized.
In traditional shape design, you need to define the perturbation for mesh grids or control grids of the shape domain. While in topography design, the software will automatically create the perturbation (normal to surface by default) to modify the shape of the structure.
For example, for the model below which is fixed at the bolt holes and has pressure load applied on the bottom surface, we define the topography region over the entire surfaces of the model. The details of topography region definition are also displayed in the following images. We use a cone shape perturbation with a maximum allowable perturbation magnitude of 1.0 mm.
For the optimization problem, we choose to maximize the stiffness and minimize the mass simultaneously with stress constraints to be less than 120 MPa. The topography shape change result is shown in the image below. We can see the mesh grids are moved out of a plane to increase the stiffness and meet the stress requirements. The comparison of stress and deformation results before and after optimization is also presented.
Topography optimization is a great tool in GSAM, which is easy to set up but also very useful for design improvement. For more details, please leave a comment below.