Reducing Weight of Freight Bogie Bolster Using Topology Optimization

Abstract

Nowadays, the weight minimization of a structure without affecting the initial performance is a challenging issue for design engineers. Weight reduction approaches such as topological optimization provide a solution to determining the optimal shape of a structure without compromising the intended performance and required functionality. For most of the structures, topology optimization problems have been formulated to either minimize the compliance or weight of a structure under volume or stress constraints, respectively subjected to the certain boundary and loading conditions. In the present work, the optimization is performed by minimizing the compliance, subjected to a volume constraint, results in weight-saving of the railway freight bogie bolster without affecting the strength. A penalization scheme, SIMP (Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization) method is used to determine the optimum distribution of material, and void has been incorporated in the initial design. Topology optimization run performed on the initial design and results suggest mass reduction from chosen design space. The initial freight bogie bolster design is modified resulting in an approximate weight reduction of about 6.23%. Stress and deformation study performed by the FEA tool on the modified design of bolster justifies the optimization work. The modal analysis confirms the interchangeability of the designs.