OptiStruct takes a lot of the "guess-work" out of structural design, supplementing existing engineering knowledge with sound technical information on structural load paths. Instead of using an educated guess as to what the shape of the design should be, design engineers can now use topology information from OptiStruct to guide this decision. Also OptiStruct addresses some of the downstream manufacturing constraints such as draw directions for castings, patterns for stamped or injection molded structures, symmetry concerns etc. in order to produce more manufacturable concept designs. This has the potential to speed up the design process and also eliminate unnecessary design changes late in the product design cycle.

Figure 1 a) shows the original design of an engine mount casting. Figure 1 b) shows to topology optimization results based on 7 separate load cases. The topology optimization was set up with manufacturing constraints to insure that all structures were of a minimum size and that their were no undercuts so that the part could be made with traditional casting processes. The OptiStruct result was then used as a template to generate the final design as shown in Figure 1 c). The final design saved 20% in weight while maintaining the same strength and stiffness as the original part. For this manufacturer, this generated savings of $35,000 per year in material savings along with additional energy savings. For more information, visit Altair Engineering's website at www.altair.com.

a) Original Design

b) OptiStruct Result

c) Optimized Design

FIGURE 1. Optimization of Engine Mount Bracket