The potential of low cost topology optimization
Year: 2013
Editor: John Lawlor, Ger Reilly, Robert Simpson, Michael Ring, Ahmed Kovacevic, Mark McGrath, William Ion, David Tormey, Erik Bohemia, Chris McMahon, Brian Parkinson
Author: Beger, Anna-Lena; Brezing, Alex; Feldhusen, Jörg
Series: E&PDE
Institution: RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Section: Design Methodology
Page(s): 026-031
ISBN: 978-1-904670-42-1
Abstract
Topology optimization (TO) is a powerful tool to generate forms for structural parts. Used at the beginning of the design process, it can generally lead to a reduction of iteration loops and an optimization of the weight/stiffness ratio. It has been argued that the application of TO could also be effective in the hands of industrial design. Moreover, TO could help to add plausibility to the theory of technical mechanics and structural concepts in design and engineering education. These benefits are not being utilized by a large share of potential users for mainly two reasons. Firstly, current commercial software involves a great financial invest. Secondly, an effective use of the software requires extensive training, which is the main hindrance against the methodâs application in conventional engineering education, where no time can be cut from the tight schedules to learn to operate additional software. However, in recent years, a range of rather basic, free TO software has become available on the internet. Starting the discussion if such offers are interesting options for engineering and design education and practice, this paper gives an overview of the functionality of current free TO software. Next, a specific case is studied with one commercial and several free TO programs. The investigation focuses on available functionalities for defining geometry and load cases as well as on the qualitative or quantitative rating of the optimized structures. The question of interest is if the disadvantages of the reduced performance of free software can be compensated by the advantages of saving time and budget and to what extent such freeware can be a feasible alternative to professional FEM-based software, especially in the context of enhancing engineering education and supporting designers.
Keywords: Topology optimization, enhancing engineerign education, industrial design