Quantification of the material-related environmental impact of topology-optimized multi-material components

Abstract

When developing products, engineers face challenges in solving technical, economical, but also ecological conflicts of objectives. A common technical conflict is the contradictory behaviour between the stiffness and mass of components. A possibility to resolve this contradiction is offered by multimaterial components, which are made possible by a loadoptimised design.Taking the example of topology-optimised multi-material components, this article shows a method for taking the ecological impact of raw material extraction into account in selecting suitable designs by offsetting a performance index with the results of ecological impact assessment calculations. These results are analysed in order to identify a possible solution according to the technical-ecological conflict of objectives.

Structuring and Provision of Manufacturing knowledge through the Manufacturing Resource Ontology

“…This technology combines joining, forming, and cutting processes in a process chain to produce multi-material components with locally adapted properties. From a lightweight construction perspective, these components are more efficient than monomaterial components [20]. These process chains are characterized by a strongly reciprocal behavior between the individual processes.…”

Process Chain-Oriented Design Evaluation of Multi-Material Components by Knowledge-Based Engineering

“…This requires a holistic view of the subsequent process chains and the manufacturing sequences necessary to produce a component [8]. In this way, not only process-specific but also cross-process manufacturing constraints resulting from the interaction of individual processes can be taken into account in the development [9]. In order to implement a targeted solution space exploration, this article presents a constraint-based modeling strategy using the example of a multi-stage tailored forming process chain for manufacturing a multimaterial shaft in order to formalize manufacturing knowledge, such as the design of the manufacturing stages, cross-process manufacturing constraints or applicable manufacturing resources for product design and to make it available for product and process design decisions in the context of design for manufacturing.…”