Here are 3 Different Lightweighting Techniques to Consider:
1. Design
It is essential to decide on a shape, size, and structure that’s optimized such that the least amount of material is being used to provide the required amount of support while ensuring that the design is practical to manufacture.
In certain assemblies, engineers make use of nuts and bolts to hold together the structure due to pre-existing manufacturing rules, however, these nuts and bolts make the component significantly heavier and also add to the assembly time. In order to overcome these problems, one must have a function-first mindset which would, in turn, eliminate any excessive components that only add to the weight but not the function of the product by part consolidation.
Conformal ribbing, in addition to the use of certain other design techniques like using lattices and architected materials having honeycomb-like structures, has also been incorporated as a method to lightweight materials. The objective of conformal ribbing is to improve buckling while also enabling thinner walls, however, as easy and affordable it is to carry out ribbing in the case of polymers, it becomes more expensive and challenging in terms of mass-production when dealing with metals that are relatively stiffer and stronger.
The other design techniques, as mentioned above, are hybrid structures consisting of gaps, or empty spaces, enclosed in a solid material arranged as foams, lattices, shell-like, or honeycomb-like structures and can considerably reduce the weight of a component. Lattices are known to give the structure strength in addition to making them lightweight.
2. Topology Optimization
Topology optimization is a mathematical technique that works on the principle of uniformly distributing the required load throughout the component by calculating the optimal component design such that the amount of material required to manufacture the component is minimized. This technique has been employed extensively by mechanical as well as civil engineers over the years in order to maintain the mechanical strength of materials while reducing the required amount of material and the strain of energy structure hence reducing the weight of the component.
3. Material Selection
Another extensively used technique while attempting to lightweight certain products or components is to select lightweight materials in their construction. Using Aluminum over Steel results in a decrease by two-thirds in terms of the weight of the component and using Magnesium over Aluminum further declines the weight of the product by 33%. However, to successfully chose the appropriate material as the solution for your product, it is essential to be mindful of the potential advantages and disadvantages that each material has to offer and what the impact of switching materials would be on the overall performance of the product.
Magnesium is an extremely light metal and has the highest known damping capacity compared to other structural metals and can therefore be useful to you or your company if you are looking to lightweight your products.
If you want to learn more about how Magnesium Alloys can help with your product, Write to us at anishay@exclusivemagnesium.com (or) Request a quote for your component from Exclusive Magnesium Pvt. Ltd. today.
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