OPTIMIZATION OF THE WALL THICKNESS OF A PLASTIC VALVE COVER

Recent advances in hardware and software have allowed to development teams to use their time not only solving common CAE analyses but also thinking about the development of CAE optimization environments. Optimization comes like a tool capable to drive design parameters towards regions where selected characteristics of the project can be further improved. This work presents one case that serves to illustrate the application of a optimization technique well known as multi-objective optimization. In the example a Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm is used to define the thicknesses of several regions over a valve cover looking not only for lower flexibility but also to lower mass. In this case, the commercial code PERMAS was used to verify the structural behavior of the valve cover, as well as to calculate its mass. Design variables were restricted to geometry parameters - cover thickness - while optimization objectives comprised reduction of mass besides of maximization of the cover stiffness aiming to reduce cover leakage. The commercial code modeFRONTIER was used as the process integrator and optimization tool.