LEARNING RESOURCE

Reinforcing Strategies

INTRODUCTION

You can reduce material use and create lighter weight designs by • Trusses and Gussets – Trusses use a triangular arrangement
intelligently reinforcing your designs. Some reinforcing strategies of beams that bear external forces as either tension or
for lightweighting include: compression. This allows designs from bridges to bike frames to
bear loads elegantly and efficiently. Gussets are triangles that
• Hollow parts and thin walls – Often hollow tubes and
specifically reinforce corners.
thin-walled parts can provide all of the strength your design
needs. To remove material in the right place, you’ll need to
understand the forces at work. A surprising example of a hollow
SIMULATION FOR REINFORCING STRATEGIES
part is an I-beam, which is effectively a part hollowed from the
outside that is optimized to resist bending and shear loads.
Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, you can test your
• Spot reinforcement – You’ll need extra reinforcement where
designs against your strength and stiffness requirements as you
forces concentrate on your design. To reinforce well but not
reduce material use. You can use Autodesk® Fusion 360
over-build your design, you’ll need to understand how tension,
software to simulate and model lightweighted products and parts.
compression, torsion, shear, and bending forces act in these
If you’re a student or educator, you can download the software for
places.
free in the Autodesk Education Community Download Center.
• Posts and Ribs – You can strategically place posts and ribs to
reduce the unsupported length of your designs to allow for
thinner walls or beams.

| academy.autodesk.com LIGHTWEIGHTING: REINFORCING STRATEGIES

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