Potential impact of additive manufacturing and topology optimization inspired lightweight design on vehicle track performance

Abstract

This paper describes an interactive approach for analyzing the impact of the enhanced design freedom in additive manufacturing (AM) combined with topology optimization. The main goal is to identify weight saving potentials on a holistic vehicle level and evaluate the influence on vehicle performance by means of lap time savings. Therefore lightweight use cases enabled by AM are gathered in a database. Projecting the weight reduction rates of this database to a sports car as reference vehicle by means of a weight list, CAD data and a part relation analysis leads to an overall weight saving potential. This analysis shows significant weight saving potentials for each technical section of an already lightweight design focused sports car, namely the Bugatti Chiron. The improvement in track performance considering the weight savings is put into perspective by means of lap time simulation on the Nürburgring Nordschleife and corroborate the identified weight saving potentials.

Influence of process parameters and process set-up on damage evolution during stretch drawing of u-shaped profiles

“…In the automotive industry in particular, however, the components used have to meet stringent requirements in order to ensure the safety of passengers in the best possible way [6]. In the field of lightweight design, high-strength materials or topology optimization are currently used in order to save material and thus weight [7]. What is currently only insufficiently exploited are the possibilities offered by the control of ductile damage along the process chain and by ductile damage meaning the formation, growth and coalescence of voids in the microstructure.…”