IT Solutions
Topology optimization meets AI
Calculation and simulation at the designer's fingertips - Dassault Systèmes Solidworks and DPS Software have been supporting this trend towards deeply integrated CAD-CAE process chains for years.
Solidworks, by implementing comprehensive options for shape optimization of components in Solidworks Simulation for the first time with the current 2018 release, and DS partner DPS Software, which provides its customers with assistance in design analysis using topology optimization with its own CAE Competence Center.
An intelligent algorithm determines the optimum component structure in the software, both for conventional machining processes and for 3D printing. This provides the designer with design suggestions right at the start of their work, for example with regard to weight savings. This shortens the search for the best variant.
The seven CAE Competence Centers at DPS provide Solidworks users with targeted support so that they can build up and implement expertise more quickly within their CAD process. The aim is for the designer to carry out calculations themselves without errors and not have to outsource this task.
Wolfgang Müller, Head of the DPS Competence Center CAE, creates a tension between topology optimization and AI: "Usually, simulation only takes place once the key design decisions have already been made. Topology optimization is completely different. The search for the ideal basic shape takes place at the very beginning of the design process. And this is precisely where the relationship to AI arises: the system is given a target, i.e. physical boundary conditions are defined with regard to the design space, if you like: a topological map of a material that does not yet exist, in which the algorithm is allowed to move with a set of rules with regard to stresses, draft angles and symmetries, etc. The result is therefore produced from several perspectives. The result is therefore achieved from several perspectives, which would otherwise possibly only be achieved successively."
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