Case Study: Bike Crank Design Optimization – Towards Sustainable Product Design
In pursuit of realizing a responsible production (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No.12) of goods, sustainability considerations are becoming indispensable in an engineer’s decision-making process throughout the product development. This case study presents a sustainable product design methodology, using a bike crank as an example. It is centered around Ansys Granta EduPack and Ansys Discovery, allowing for a concurrent consideration of material candidates (strategic material selection) and designs (FEA-simulation), respectively. Furthermore, it demonstrates means of structurally optimizing designs using topology optimization with the aim of reducing the amount of material required for a bike crank design. Beyond the structural analysis, a streamlined life-cycle-assessment is conducted to elucidate the ecological and economic impact of different material and design choices. In a final trade-off analysis, light is shed on key performance indices to make informed and responsible decisions and discusses additional consideration for critically assessing and improving material and design choices.
