Enhancing the Buckling Performance of Thin-Walled Plastic Structures Through Material Optimization

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to improve the buckling resistance of plastic products by optimizing material distribution, reducing material use without sacrificing structural performance.

Contribution

A sensitivity-based optimization approach is developed to enhance buckling resistance in thin-walled plastic structures.

Findings

A sensitivity-based optimization method was developed to improve buckling resistance in blow-molded products.

The approach achieved up to 60% improvement in buckling load for extrusion blow-molded products.

The method is transferable to other thin-walled structures for lightweight and load-compliant designs.

Abstract

Reducing material usage in plastic products is a key lever for improving resource efficiency and minimizing environmental impact. In thin-walled structures subjected to mechanical loading, material efficiency must be achieved without compromising structural performance. In particular, resistance to buckling, a critical failure mode, must be taken into account during product development. Due to the large number of design and process variables, many of which are interdependent, optimization approaches are uncommon in the blow-molded packaging industry. This paper presents a sensitivity-based optimization approach to improve buckling resistance by modifying the product’s material distribution. Since the sensitivity is nonlinear and depends on the product’s deformation state, various methods are developed and tested to reduce the frame-wise sensitivity data to a single sensitivity vector suitable for optimization. These methods are then tested on common extrusion blow-molded products, achieving improvements in buckling load of up to 60%. This approach is transferable to other thin-walled structures across various engineering domains, offering a pathway toward lightweight yet load-compliant designs.

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