The bending load case would naturally want a wide base to provide the biggest reacting couple. In this lug, the width is a controlling factor. Conversely, if too much material is clipped from the initial design space, then the final configuration can be skewed away from a more “natural” result. If the redundancy is removed, then 50% Volume Fraction is literally attacking the meat of the problem in the 10 cubic inches of design space left. A tighter initial design space can be defined and has the advantage of reducing the element count in the underlying FEA and making the target Volume Fraction reduction more focused on critical material.Ī 50% Volume Fraction used on 20 cubic inches, with 10 cubic inches is redundant and is not effective in driving toward a useful configuration.

From engineering basics, a lot of the material is not needed above the hole. The lug will carry axial loads and side loads. The vertical part is the design space the base is a non-design space. My objective was to create a lug-like configuration starting from the geometry shown in Fig. 5: Initial design space, loading and constraint.

Solidthinking altair