By Abdel-Salam M. Niazy T he realities of global competition and shortening product cycles necessitate tools and processes that distinguish engineers and manufacturing firms from their competition. To achieve higher returns on their investments, organizations must look at all points along their design process, in order to deliver more reliable, less costly, and less time-intensive products and services that meet the demands of customers. In years past, technological constraints lengthened the processes associated with product design. This is made possible by reducing the impact of mathematical and informational complexities often associated with meeting dynamic design specifications. Engineering software that reduces complexity, increases the flexibility of the design process, and empowers the designer with tools that integrate with other existing components of the design process are what make optimization not only possible, but easy to implement.
Shape optimization is a reality for many industrial firms.
Recent developments in design software have overcome these hurdles by taking advantage of improvements in computational hardware and integrating analysis systems tightly with CAD systems. The improvement in processing speed has lessened the time needed to calculate design iterations to locate trends, while the integration of analysis systems allows for a more interactive process. Companies faced with customer demands or internal design requirements that call for shape optimization need to assess what type of solution fits their needs. The Basics of Optimization Design optimization involves the analysis of a series of changes to a design model, followed by successive iterations to determine observable design improvements. From this process, decisions can be made to change elements of the design to fit within the parameters of the initial design specifications and overall intent.