It’s not often that we can (are allowed to) share with you some of the clever things we get up to.
We have a contract to do some design work on a Bicycle Stem (bit connecting the handlebars to the bike).
First we did a stress analysis of a generic stem (copy of the one on my bike)
Then we let our Generative Design software have a go at creating a solution, after many runs and tweaks we finally got something we though was good. It’s in the same material as the generic one but it’s weight is 58g compared with the 156g of the original.
You can see from the two videos that both models perform well, however more of the generative design is working at higher levels of stress. The aim of a generative design is to use less material by ensuring that every part is stressed and there is no unstressed parts.
The stress analysis above also shows that there can be a further reduction in material as the ultimate goal would be for every part of the model to be at maximum acceptable stress.