Journal
ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING SOFTWARE
Volume 64, Issue -, Pages 1-10Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.advengsoft.2013.04.003
Keywords
Automobile body; Thin-walled beam; Cross section; Shape optimization; Genetic algorithm; Object-oriented programming
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51205159]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
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At the conceptual design stage, automobile body is evaluated by simplified frame structure, consisting of thin-walled beams (TWBs). In the automobile practice, design engineers mostly rely on their experience and intuition when making decisions on cross-sectional shape of TWBs. So this paper presents a cross-sectional shape optimization method in order to achieve a high stiffness and lightweight TWB. Firstly, cross-sectional property formulations is summarized and reviewed. Secondly, we build up a shape optimization model to minimize the cross-sectional area and satisfy the stiffness and manufacturing demands. The objective and constraints are nonlinear polynomial functions of the point coordinates defining the cross-sectional shape. Genetic algorithm is introduced to solve this nonlinear optimization problem. Thirdly, object-oriented programming and design patterns are adopted to design and implement the software framework. Lastly, numerical example is used to verify the presented method. This software, SuperBeam for short, is released for free and does speed up the conceptual design of automobile body. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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