Lightweighting Webinar Series

Tool designers frequently try to compensate distortions based on their experience and trial-and-error testing. This can work for simple geometries, but not for complex ones. The time and effort to manually compensate parts can be huge.

Over the last decade, we have been advancing the capabilities of Ansys Mechanical to address the unique challenges of composite finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. The Ansys Composite Cure Simulation (ACCS) can quickly solve curing problems in cases where experience falls short.

In this webinar, you will learn how ACCS was used in the design of 170 molds for the Airbus A350 XWB, as well as for other applications.

Presenter: Douglas Weber-Steinhaus, Senior Application Engineer, Ansys

Today, the challenges around — and expectations for — new products continue to increase. Product weight, in addition to function and speed to market, is a huge consideration in development. The benefits of saving weight are twofold. First, in the transportation industry, less weight means direct energy savings in the form of electricity and fuel. Second, saving material cuts production costs, which favorably impacts sales margins.

Ansys offers three solutions to generate topology-optimized (TO) designs, which overcome manufacturing constraints (maximum thickness, pull-out, overhang) for lightweighting designs. Each can be tailored to your production process (casting, additive manufacturing, etc.).

In this webinar, we will demonstrate the workflows — from geometry through validation — for all the available TO methods for lightweighting structures.

Presenter: Sebastian Stahn, Senior Application Engineer, Ansys

Lightweighting through design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) has gained a lot of attention recently. And, while performing topology optimizations or applying lattices for your additive manufactured product is beneficial and in many cases critical, it is also necessary to validate and optimize these designs to ensure accurately printed parts and avoid unnecessary, expensive iterations.

Ansys offers a comprehensive and scalable software solution for additive, which minimizes the risks within your additive manufacturing processes and delivers high-quality, certifiable parts.

In this webinar, we will see how a user ran a part through a series of validations to produce a truly functional lightweight structure on a metal 3D printer.

One of the main strategies for lightweighting is to use materials with higher specific strength or stiffness. For example, replacing steel with composites. But the process is not straightforward, as the optimal material varies depending on the dominant load condition, the freedom to change the design, and other non mechanical requirements for the component, such as price, durability, processability, or environmental considerations. As a result, many lightweighting projects end in failure or sub-optimal outcomes due to poor choice of material.

In this webinar you will learn how to find the best materials to consider for your lightweighting projects. GRANTA Selector can be used to identify optimal materials at the start, before more detailed analysis and geometry optimization. Use the right material from the outset with confidence, maximizing your weight-saving potential.

Presenter: Dr. Charlie Bream, Lead Product Manager, Ansys