For seven years, a tier 1 automotive supplier that serves OEM and high-performance vehicle programs had been casting a suspension upright component in steel. The part was performing adequately and meeting its structural requirements. But it was deemed overengineered for the load cases it was experiencing.
The steel design had been sized 'conservatively' at the outset and never revisited due to engineering capacity and retooling costs. Though the company knew there was a weight reduction opportunity, it struggled to justify the time, effort and cost of a redesign.
What's more, when it did find the resources to consider its options, it was running topology studies and manufacturability checks as sequential, largely manual steps across multiple tools. The inefficiency of this process hampered its attempts to commence a design optimisation, which was only addressed when Cognitive Design Systems (CDS) was brought into the fold.
CDS was able to provide a platform that could handle multi-process manufacturability constraints, which gave the supplier true insight into how additive manufacturing measured up against conventional techniques.
"This kind of inbound engagement is increasingly common for us," a CDS spokesperson told TCT. "After an initial technical exchange, it became clear that their challenge, optimising a suspension upright across multiple competing manufacturing pathways, was a strong fit for what Cognitive Design enables. They onboarded quickly and ran the project themselves using the platform."
