A Comparative Study of the Application of Different Commercial Software for Topology Optimization

Topology optimization (TO) has been a popular design method among CAD designers in the last decades. This method optimizes the given design domain by minimizing/maximizing one or more objective functions, such as the structure's stiffness, and at the same time, respecting the given constraints like the volume or the weight reduction. For this reason, the companies providing the commercial CAD/FEM platforms have taken this design trend into account and, thus, have included TO in their products over the last years. However, it is not clear which features, algorithms, or, in other words, possibilities the CAD designers do have using these software platforms. A comparative study among the most applied topology optimization software was conducted for this research paper. First, the authors developed an online database of the identified TO software in the form of a table. Interested CAD designers can access and edit its content, contributing in this way to the creation of an updated library of the available TO software. In addition, a deeper comparison among three commercial software platforms-SolidWorks, ANSYS Mechanical, and ABAQUS-was implemented using three common case studies-(1) a bell crank lever, (2) a pillow bracket, and (3) a small bridge. These models were designed, optimized, and validated numerically, as well as compared for their strength. Finally, the above software was evaluated with respect to optimization time, optimized designs, and TO possibilities and features.