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Structural Brackets find various applications ranging from structural reinforcements to automotive supports. It is necessary for these structures to be light in weight and have a good stiffness at the same time. It is important to keep in mind that the CAD design must be properly analyzed and optimized before manufacturing the component.
The problem statement here is to perform a static analysis of a baseline structural bracket and perform topology optimization to reduce the material without compromising the structural properties of the component. A bracket was designed using ANSYS Spaceclaim and the analysis was performed using ANSYS Workbench Mechanical CAE. The two holes on the left side are fixed while a loading condition is applied on the right hand side hole along the XY axis.
Baseline CAD model designed in Spaceclaim and imported in Workbench ANSYS.
The baseline CAD model is meshed with All Hex Elements and the the holes are preserved using a single layer of boundary layer elements.
A static structural analysis is performed on the bracket and the stresses are mapped. It can be observed that the majority of the geometry is either free from stress or has a negligible stress close to ZERO value. So the topology optimization needs to be performed in those region where stress is ZERO.
The new geometry after performing Topology Optimization on the Design Space of the bracket. The geometry has rough edges and needs to be smoothened in order to make it manufacturable.
The new geometry is smoothened using the repair tools in Spaceclaim ANSYS and the tough contoured surfaces are simplified and reduced to less complex surfaces.
A new Mesh is created on the model again with All Hex Elements to perform a Structural Analysis on the final model to validate.
The results of the Structural Analysis are satisfactory. The stresses induced is almost the same to that of the baseline model which means the new model is reduced in weight while gaining the structural property and rigidity. A 40% material reduction was achieved overall for the bracket.
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