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Altair > Case Studies > Optimizing Material Use and Cost for Innovative Building Product

Optimizing Material Use and Cost for Innovative Building Product

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Sensors - Environmental Sensors

Applicable Industries

Cement
Metals

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation
Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Construction Management
Manufacturing Process Simulation

The Challenge

Re-Loc, a UK-based company, developed a new product to accelerate the construction process. The product is a clip that fits inside the cavity of a concrete brick and attaches to the steel bar, holding it securely in place. However, the manufacturing cost of the initial design was too high for mass production, given the large number of clips required for a single structure. The challenge was to reduce the material use and cost of the part, bring the design to a production level, and make it as efficient as possible. The part had to be sufficiently stiff to maintain the position of vertical and horizontal bars relative to the inside surfaces of the hollow blocks, allow the concrete to be poured through or around itself, and endure all environmental aspects during use.

About The Customer

Re-Loc is a UK-based company that developed a new product to help accelerate the construction process. The product is a clip that fits tightly inside the concrete brick’s cavity and attaches to the steel bar, holding it securely in place. The team had already developed a rough design and proved that it could perform its intended job, but problems arose when it came to the manufacturing cost of the product. With potentially many hundreds if not thousands of the clips being required to fit inside a single structure to hold the bars in place, the product had to be very cheap to produce and easy to use.

The Solution

Re-Loc approached Altair ProductDesign to explore ways of reducing material use and cost from the part. Altair first performed a study to explore materials for the part which needed to have adequate stiffness and strength properties as well as being suitable for low cost, high volume manufacturing. They found that an injection molded polymer or foam would be the best options. They then performed a dynamic simulation analysis on the existing design to discover the current performance levels. With the performance data from the original design captured, Altair performed a topology optimization study on the component to investigate ways of improving the design and removing material. The topology results were interpreted back into a detailed CAD design by Altair ProductDesign and the team applied their experience to suggest further enhancements to the overall design to maximize performance. The final design produced by Altair ProductDesign successfully met the performance targets set at the beginning of the project.

Operational Impact

The final design produced by Altair ProductDesign successfully met the performance targets set at the beginning of the project. The new part now uses 45%-55% less material than the original design, saving as much as half the material costs. The team’s involvement in selecting materials, analyzing performance, optimizing material use and suggesting additional enhancements has assisted greatly in turning the Re-Loc product from a great idea into a highly engineered, manufacturable, high performance product. The design was then analyzed to ensure it would work as required when being installed and the results compared against the original design. The process of optimizing the design, making additional modifications and running analysis, was repeated for the part that held the bar in the alternative position.

Quantitative Benefit