BarbaBracket

Barbabracket Result Weight reduction 78.3% (all max. stresses below 131 ksi.) Idea The concept was to design something that could demonstrate the exclusive value of additive engineering but not be intimidating or overcomplicated. The result was obtained by replacing the original solid block by a organic curved shape and tweaking this by looking at the FEA stress directions and magnitudes. In order to minimize mass while maintaining strength, the shape is only hollow where possible; the wall thickness is variable. Further weight reduction should be possible by optimizing variable wall thickness with ribs and some more free-time., Modeling The model was created using CREO 2.0 surface and freestyle which allows modeling with barbapapa-like shapes. Simulation Creating a trustworthy simulation model took by far the most time. In my humble opinion, a floor-contact surface is required in an assembly as the bracket should be able to separate from the floor but not penetrate it. For insiders: I used a multi-pass adaptive analysis of the P-type in CREO 2.0 Simulate, simulating the solid model (and not having to convert to STEP first) with reliable results. Local horizontal bolt areas are excluded to avoid peek stresses which even in the original model gave results that could be disregarded with some engineering judgment. See PDF files for details on FEA. Added a hole in a low stress area which seems to work out nicely and presents a direction for weight saving strategy (next to being required for additive manufacturing :-))