Lightweight design of a shock tower based on topology and size optimization

DOI

10.2991/icadme-17.2017.32How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Shock tower, Lightweight, Topology optimization, Size optimization, Aluminum alloy

Abstract

The shock tower, serving as a critical component of the front car body, plays an important role in the stability and ride comfort of the vehicle. In this study, a lightweight optimal design was obtained based on the original steel structure. Stiffness requirements for optimization process were extracted from the original steel structure. Subsequently, topology optimization was implemented to gain the distribution of stiffeners, and size optimization was adopted to provide an optimal thickness for stiffeners. In addition, the choice of optimization space, which is critical and usually neglected, was taken into account. As a result, a detailed structure of the aluminum alloy shock tower for vacuum die casting was determined. Compared with the original steel structure, the weight of the final design is reduced by nearly 45% without sacrificing the functional performance.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Huajie Mao
AU  - Wen Fu
AU  - Jian Lan
AU  - Xinhao Zhao
PY  - 2017/07
DA  - 2017/07
TI  - Lightweight design of a shock tower based on topology and size optimization
BT  - Proceedings of the 2017 7th International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacturing Engineering (ICADME 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 162
EP  - 166
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icadme-17.2017.32
DO  - 10.2991/icadme-17.2017.32
ID  - Mao2017/07
ER  -