An Industrial Applicable Approach towards Design Optimization of a Mechanism: a Coronaventilator Case Study

TL;DR

This paper presents an industrial-friendly workflow for mechanism design optimization using CAD models and motion simulations, demonstrated on a coronaventilator mechanism to achieve significant torque reduction efficiently.

Contribution

It introduces a practical, automation-enabled optimization process using CAD and motion simulations, facilitating wider industrial adoption without complex analytical methods.

Findings

Reduced RMS torque by 57.2% in the case study.

Automated simulation workflow enables low-cost evaluation of multiple designs.

Optimization process completed in 42 minutes.

Abstract

Design optimization of mechanisms is a promising research area as it results in more energy-efficient machines without compromising performance. However, machine builders do not actually use the potential described in the literature as these methods require too much theoretical analysis. This paper introduces a convenient optimization workflow allowing wide industrial adoption, by using CAD models. The 3D multi-body software is used to perform motion simulations, from which the objective value samples can be extracted. These motion simulations determine the required torque for a certain combination of design parameters to fulfill the movement. Dedicated software can execute multiple motion simulations sequentially and interchange data between the different simulations, which automates the process of retrieving objective value samples. Therefore, without in-depth analytical design analysis, a machine designer can evaluate multiple designs at low cost. Moreover, by implementing an optimization algorithm, an optimal design can be found that meets the objective. In a case study of a coronaventilator mechanism with three design parameters (DP's), 39 CAD motion simulations allowed to reduce the RMS torque of the mechanism by 57.2% in 42 minutes.