Coupled Evolutionary Shape Optimization and Reverse Engineering in Product Design and Virtual Prototyping

Abstract: Product development in highly competitive times frequently implies very short time-to-market deadlines and product designs that need to deliver high performance at low investment and operation costs. These conflicting objectives can sometimes be accomplished by starting from existing designs and optimizing for better performance defined by some set of excellence criteria. This paper develops a systematic procedure that starts by using a 3D scan of the existing design, defines an efficient shape parameterization for the part of the object that shall be redesigned, and develops an evolutionary shape optimization model. This is accompanied by developing a numerical workflow to handle this demanding process and an implementation that provides solutions in reasonable computer time. The workflow is developed based on existing specialized applications for geometric modeling, numerical analysis, finite-element simulations, and optimization, and therefore makes a rather heterogeneous system. It uses and runs different applications on the ‘as-needed ’ basis and provides for corresponding synchronization and data mining. The procedure is in this paper applied to the optimum design of 2D airfoils for wind-turbine blades