Optimizing Automotive
Lightweighting
Lightweighting to meet increasing fuel efciency and stricter
emission requirements involves heavyweight software tools
to optimize the choice of the materials and part designs.
Here are two ways of lightweighting automobiles: swap
steel parts with those made of lighter material, and
redesign parts to lessen their mass. The frst way has
led to the increasing use of aluminum and composite
materials; the second is akin to a crash diet for car bodies.
Simple, right? Sure, except for the details in optimizing the
primary tradeofs of strength, manufacturability, and cost.
BY LAWRENCE S. GOULD / Contributing Editor
The Part Cost
Estimator in CES
Selector 2016
shows how material
selection can be
affected by shaping
processes, batch
size, part size and
complexity, and other
factors.
Here's some software to help with that. First, material selec-
tion software for comparing materials. Second, composite
design software for developing composite parts. Last,
topology optimization software for shaping parts.
OPTIMIZE MATERIAL SELECTION
This year's version of CES Selector from Granta Design Ltd.
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