Chen Jiaju, Xu Yanan, Gao Yunkai
School of Automotive Studies, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China.
Shanghai Key Lab of Vehicle Aerodynamics and Vehicle Thermal Management Systems, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China.
Polymers (Basel). 2020 Oct 27;12(11):2495. doi: 10.3390/polym12112495.
This study addressed the topology optimization of a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) laminated battery-hanging structure of an electric vehicle. To accommodate parameterization for thickness and orientation of CFRP materials, the discrete material and thickness optimization (DMTO) technique was adopted. To include metal material as a reinforcement structure into the optimization simultaneously, the DMTO technique was extended here to achieve concurrent optimization of CFRP thickness topology, CFRP orientation selection and the topology of the metal reinforcement plate. Manufacturing constraints were applied, including suppressing intermediate void across the thickness direction of the laminate, contiguity constraint and the symmetrical layers. Sensitivities of the objective function were derived with respect to design variables. To calculate analytical sensitivities, finite element analysis was conducted and strain vectors were exported from a commercial software (ABAQUS) into a mathematical analysis tool (MATLAB). The design objective was to minimize the local displacement subject to the constraints of manufacturing and mass fraction. The mechanical performance of the optimized CFRP structure was compared with the original steel structure. To validate the optimization results, a prototype of the CFRP battery-hanging structure was fabricated and experimental testing was conducted. The results show that the total mass of the CFRP battery-hanging structure was reduced by 34.3% when compared with the steel one, while the mechanical property was improved by 25.3%.
本研究探讨了电动汽车碳纤维增强塑料（CFRP）层压电池悬挂结构的拓扑优化问题。为了适应CFRP材料厚度和取向的参数化，采用了离散材料与厚度优化（DMTO）技术。为了将金属材料作为增强结构同时纳入优化，在此扩展了DMTO技术，以实现CFRP厚度拓扑、CFRP取向选择和金属增强板拓扑的协同优化。应用了制造约束条件，包括抑制层压板厚度方向上的中间空隙、连续性约束和对称层。推导了目标函数相对于设计变量的灵敏度。为了计算解析灵敏度，进行了有限元分析，并将应变向量从商业软件（ABAQUS）导出到数学分析工具（MATLAB）中。设计目标是在制造和质量分数的约束下使局部位移最小化。将优化后的CFRP结构的力学性能与原始钢结构进行了比较。为了验证优化结果，制作了CFRP电池悬挂结构的原型并进行了实验测试。结果表明，与钢结构相比，CFRP电池悬挂结构的总质量降低了34.3%，而力学性能提高了25.3%。
