Decreasing fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions have been an important issue nowadays for automotive industry after new regulations. Fuel consumption is also an important parameter that highly affects the customers’ choice. Reduction of total vehicle weight with optimization is one of the common methods to improve fuel consumption and emissions. There are a lot of studies on body, interior, and engine components of the vehicle to improve fuel efficiency and emissions including design modifications, using alternative material and architectural optimizations. In this article, the optimization of an aluminum support bracket that carry alternator and hydraulic steering pump is studied. First, design space is determined with layout analysis defining constraints and fixing points. Then, topology optimization method is applied in order to explore the load carrying path of the component. Final design is frozen through computational analysis verifications and industrialization phase modifications. A comparison of the new design with the actual production showed that the mass of the current design could be reduced by 37%, while all product expectations were met.

在新法规出台之后，减少油耗和排气管排放已成为当今汽车行业的重要问题。燃油消耗也是一个重要参数，会极大地影响客户的选择。通过优化来减轻车辆总重量是改善燃油消耗和排放的常用方法之一。为了提高燃油效率和排放，对汽车的车身，内饰和发动机组件进行了大量研究，包括使用替代材料和结构优化进行设计修改。在本文中，研究了带有交流发电机和液压转向泵的铝制支撑架的优化。首先，通过定义约束和固定点的布局分析来确定设计空间。然后，应用拓扑优化方法来探索部件的承载路径。通过计算分析验证和工业化阶段修改来冻结最终设计。新设计与实际生产的比较表明，在满足所有产品预期的同时，当前设计的质量可以减少37％。