Optimizing the Design of a Fuel Pod with NX and Maple
Introduction
A manufacturer has designed a fuel pod in NX. The fuel pod has hemispherical and conical caps, and a cylindrical midsection.
To minimize material costs, the manufacturer wants to minimize the surface area of the fuel pod while maintaining the existing volume
This application
pulls the current dimensions of the fuel pod (radius of the hemispherical end, length of the cylindrical midsection, and height of the conical end) from the NX CAD model
calculates the current volume of the fuel pod
optimizes the dimensions to minimize the surface area while maintaining the existing volume
and pushes the optimized dimensions back into the NX CAD model
To use this application, you must
have a supported version of NX installed,
ensure the NX-Maple link is working correctly (see NX for details).
load canisterOptimization.prt in NX (this is the CAD model of the fuel pod),
restart:withOptimization:withCAD:-NX:
Read Existing Design Parameters in Maple
pars:=GetParameterNames
heightConeCurr≔GetParameterValueheightCone⋅GetParameterUnitsheightCone
heightConeCurr:=50.00mm
lenCentralCurr≔GetParameterValuelenCentral⋅GetParameterUnitslenCentral
lenCentralCurr:=60.00mm
radSphereCurr≔GetParameterValueradSphere⋅GetParameterUnitsradSphere
radSphereCurr:=15.00mm
Define Expressions to Calculate the Volume and Surface Area of the Canister
volCanister≔heightCone,lenCentral,radSphere→evalfπ radSphere2heightCone3+πradSphere2lenCentral+2πradSphere33:
vol≔volCanisterheightConeCurr,lenCentralCurr,radSphereCurr
vol:=61261.05675mm3
surfaceCanister≔heightCone,lenCentral,radSphere→evalf2πradSphere2+2πradSpherelenCentral+πradSphereradSphere2+heightCone2:
surfaceCanisterheightConeCurr,lenCentralCurr,radSphereCurr
9528.522740mm2
Design Optimization
Minimize the surface area while maintaining the volume
optValues≔MinimizesurfaceCanisterheightConeNew,lenCentralNew,radSphereNew,volCanisterheightConeNew,lenCentralNew,radSphereNew=volmm3,assume=nonnegative
optValues:=7660.22,heightConeNew=21.46,lenCentralNew=10.73,radSphereNew=23.99
Export New Design Parameters into NX
assignoptValues2:
SetParameterValueheightCone,heightConeNew:
SetParameterValuelenCentral,lenCentralNew:
SetParameterValueradSphere,radSphereNew:
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