Car Frame optimization

Endeavor
Endeavor Altair Community Member
edited October 2020 in Community Q&A

I am optimizing the car frame by considering the entire design mass available with the help of Optistruct (you can imagine it as a hollow solid car body, separated into three compartments (first for engine, second for driver and seats and third for some payload). The parameters I set for the optimization are as follows: 

 

Boundary Conditions: Fixed support at fours wheel connections

Forces: Bending, Torsional, lateral (braking) and gravitational forces
Design variable: Element Density
Design constraint: Static displacement for multiple load cases with an upper bound of 60mm.
Objective: Minimum Mass
Optimization Controls: Minimum Member size = 60mm, Discrete = 2, MATINIT = 0.6 and MINDENS = 0.00001

 

With these optimization formulation and controls, I am getting load paths of the car frame in the vertical directions but not in the horizontal direction.

 

Could anyone please explain me what am I missing in the formulation? or Is there any other methods/ controls through which I can improve my optimization to find proper loadpaths?

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Answers

  • Rahul Rajan_21763
    Rahul Rajan_21763 New Altair Community Member
    edited October 2019

    Did you try applying any manufacturing constraints? Please refer below screenshot for suggested topology optimization problem formulation.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>suggested.JPG

  • Endeavor
    Endeavor Altair Community Member
    edited October 2019

    Thanks for your reply @Rahul R. I will try these formulations to see if I can get a better result. 

     

    and yes, I have applied manufacturing constraints (min. member size = 100mm; max. member size = 200mm; min. gap = 200mm + Extrusion). I would like to add symmetry through pattern grouping, but unfortunately extrusion+pattern grouping is not supported. Could you possibly know any other combination(s) of manufacturing constraints for better results.?

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