PSI - Issue 39

Riccardo Caivano et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 39 (2022) 81–88 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

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reported as obtained after the optimisation. As it can be noticed, both respect the imposed limits, and the optimised bracket is structurally safe.

Fig. 3 Topologically optimised component: a) right side and b) left side.

Since the model is fully linear elastic, simply rescaling the maximum von Mises stress for 1.5, that used to find the nominal condition, it results to be 630 MPa, less than the Yield stress equal to 866 MPa. It means that the part is safe in quasi-static conditions too.

Fig. 4. Optimised component result data: a) von Mises equivalent stress; b) maximum first principal stress.

4. Conclusion In the present paper, the TopFat methodology is used to safely topologically optimise a real aerospace component in the fatigue regime in presence of defects. The TopFat procedure, extended to the Hypermesh commercial software, has been used to reliably optimise an aerospace bracket, considering the defect population induced by the Electron Beam Melting (EBM) additive process, guaranteeing the quasi-static safety, and leading to a 2% mass reduction as well. Overall, the presented procedure can be employed for almost all industrial additive manufacturing re-designs. It exploits the power and accessibility of commercial software to set up the optimisation, finite element discretisation and analysis whereas no coding is needed to include the TopFat procedure and include the defect population analysis.