Assessment of different optimization techniques for the structural components of a mining truck

Abstract

The aim of this Final Master Thesis is the assessment of different optimization techniques for mining truck structural components. For that purpose, it has been used several software offered by Altair. The final goal of the optimization is to reduce the weight of the components, and therefore the cost will be reduced. That is why the objective function of the optimization problem is focused on minimization of the weight. However, most of the components of the truck have already gone through a long optimization process over the years based on trial and error during the development of the new trucks. So, this assessment aims to be an evaluation on how to introduce the optimization techniques available currently in the market during the design process of new components making the design process faster and so cheaper. That is the reason why Altair software has been selected for this project. Altair has developed and acquired different solvers comprising multi-physics and has implemented all of them in the HyperWorks environment making optimization the main core of the company. OptiStruct is the solver used for solving the optimization problem.