Abstract
Topology optimization is a powerful digital engineering tool for the development of lightweight products. Nevertheless, the transition of obtained design proposals into manufacturable parts is still a challenging task. In this article, the development of a freeware framework is shown, which uses a hybrid topology optimization algorithm for stiffness and strength combined with manufacturing constraints based on finite spheres and a two-step smoothing algorithm to design manufacturable prototypes with “one click”. The presented workflow is shown in detail on a rocker, which is “one-click”-optimized and manufactured. These parts were experimentally tested using a universal testing machine. The objective of this article was to investigate the performance of “one-click”-optimized parts in comparison with manually redesigned optimized parts and the initial design space. The test results show that the design proposals created while applying the finite-spheres and two-step smoothing are equal to the manual redesigned parts based on the optimization results, proposing that the “one-click”-development can be used for the fast and direct development and fabrication of prototypes.
Highlights
In modern product development, the sustainability and performance of the parts are more critical than ever
The derived post-processed Topology optimization (TO) design proposals are shown in Figure 12, the configurations smoothed and manufacturing conflicts and smoothed (MaSmo) are smoothed using 50 smoothing iterations
These results show that the manufacturing angle heavily influences the convergence behavior of the TO
Summary
The sustainability and performance of the parts are more critical than ever. Produced products are desired to be personally optimized for customers’ needs. Topology optimization (TO) is one of the leading computeraided engineering (CAE) tools for structural optimization [1,2,3]. Many open source codes are available online. These open source codes are often hard to implement into everyday workflows. To the best of our knowledge, the only two are TopOpt [16] (TopOpt group, University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark) and Z88Arion (Chair of Engineering Design and CAD, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany)
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