Development of a new aircraft bracket : topology optimization for additive manufacturing

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Daniel Canosa
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/29126
• topic: Additive manufacturing; 3D Printing; Topology optimization; Modeling design; Production; Weight; Support; Cabin; Aircraft

The dissertation describes the work done between September and February 2019 at Heinkel Group in Hamburg, Germany. This work was made in context of the subject “Dissertation/Project/Internship” of the second semester of the fifth year of the Integrated Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of the University of Aveiro. The main task of this internship was to optimize an original bracket used in the Airbus A380 which is manufactured by conventional methods and to redesign it in a way to be suitable for additive manufacturing (AM). A first step was to perform the structural analyses of the original part in order to compare the results with the solutions created. Several topology optimizations where made to determine which volumes could be removed from the original bracket and several concepts were developed. The main goal of this project was to explore the use of additive manufacturing to create a lighter bracket but as performant as the one used in the aircraft. This work is also an exploration of the advantages of the technology in an area such as aerospace, bringing a big potential in the development of lightweight structures that are determining, for example, to reduce the fuel consumption of the aircraft and therefore its environmental impact. The main goal of this internship was to get in touch with the potentials of the technology of additive manufacturing, exploring its advantages and learning on how to design for AM. Even though the technology allows a high design freedom, the manufacturability requires the use of best practices while designing the product.