From Sketch to Optimal Design with Topology Optimization in SOLIDWORKS Simulation

As we know, running a profitable production business in this competitive world today is a challenge itself. Today’s manufacturing industries races with the new evolving trends and technologies where heavy investment is needed to keep manufacturing technologies up to date when profit margines are already strangled, on top of that buyers look for the best price and value for money, these things together are nightmare for industries survivability and profit margines, for keeping industry running efficiently.

To cater these problems SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION PROFESSIONAL and above provides you with an amazing tool known as TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION (Powered by Tosca Solver) which helps you to design optimum shape and size products, reducing production costs and increasing profitability. Let’s have a look at the capabilities of TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION tool.

This is a cantilever arm on which an object of specific weight is to be placed, in this study we will be looking at how we can optimize the design that minimum material is required to manufacture this part while maintaining minimum factor of safety of 2.5 times of the given load.

First, we will be doing a static simulation study of this part for getting exact stress plots.

Once the simulation is done SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION PROFESSIONAL and above captures the high stress area and displays the stress plot, here we can see that the maximum stress does not exceed 9.6 X 1006 N/m2 where the material can handle stress of 2.75 X 1007 N/m2 . So, we have enough room to reduce the material used in this.

Here by copying the same simulation data we can run a topology study where SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION segregates the high stress and low stress area accordingly, by using which we can eliminate the unwanted areas of geometry which does not contribute much to the stiffness factor. Let’s see how it works.

As we can see in the topology study, we can set goals and constraints as per our requirements. SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION PROFESSIONAL and above offers us three options for optimization.

• Best stiffness to weight ratio
• Minimize maximum displacement
• Minimize mass

In this study we will be choosing the best stiffness to weight ratio, moving forward we will be getting options of ways to reduce mass,

• Reduce mass by percentage
• Reduce mass by absolute value

And we need to state the percentage deduction of mass required of this part. As we can see in the video that after topology study is completed SOLIDWORKS SIMULATION PREMIUM comes with graphical representation of areas with shaded colors according to stress criticality.

We can use this graphical display as a reference for removing unwanted material, by sketching on the part face and cutting off extra material we can get the best optimized structure for required loading condition, does reducing the material required for making this part resulting in cost effective solutions.

Once the design is done, we can go for final static simulation of new geometry created, just to be sure that it meets our safety factor requirements.

After the simulation, we can see that the factor of safety is well ahead of the required safety, certifying the product for commercial use. Here is the comparison between original and final product where we achieved over 35% of weight reduction preserving the required functionality of product. This helps companies to make products at a better cost, boosting profit margins.

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