Do wider webs of the 2 mm laser-cut bracket stay feasible on fine meshes when the slenderness rule is relaxed?
research/simdesign-widerweb
With the assumed slenderness limit raised from 8 to 12.5, gauge-2 bracket webs of 16–17 mm and wider are feasible at h = 1.5, 1.0 and 0.75 mm; refinement from 1.5 to 1.0 mm moves the lightest feasible width up 0.5 mm (about 1 g, 3%); stylised, preliminary.
What it found
A small scan (stylised, preliminary). With the assumed slenderness limit w/b raised from 8 to 12.5, web widths of 15 to 20 mm at fillet radii 8, 12 and 14 mm are feasible under the peak-stress measure from w = 16.0–17.0 mm upward at every mesh tried (h = 1.5, 1.0 and 0.75 mm), so the empty fine-mesh feasible sets of simdesign-meshconverge came from the rule window. Refinement from 1.5 to 1.0 mm raises the lightest feasible width by 0.5 mm (about 1 g, 3%) at all three radii; at 0.75 mm it is unchanged at two radii and falls back one step at r = 14 mm, so the shift is not resolved beyond about one scan step. The relaxed rule stands in for out-of-plane buckling, which the 2D model cannot see, so these designs are not validated. Simulated results only.
Paper, code and results
More in Simulation-first design
- Do the isolated feasible pockets of the 2 mm laser-cut bracket survive mesh refinement?The isolated feasible pockets below w = 15 mm at the 2 mm laser-cut gauge vanish at 2.0 and 1.5 mm element size, and the smallest feasible w moves up (14.4 to 15.6 mm at r = 14 mm); stylised, preliminary.
- Is the narrow 2 mm laser-cut bracket region a mesh artefact?The narrow 2 mm laser-cut bracket region is a mesh effect: all 39 designs feasible at h = 2.5 mm fail the stress limit at h ≤ 1.5 mm (peak 1.09–1.27× higher, still rising at 0.75 mm); stylised, negative for the search mesh.
- Does a patch-averaged stress make the 2 mm laser-cut bracket region mesh-independent?A 3 mm patch-averaged stress converges with the mesh (≤2.2% change from h = 1.0 to 0.75 mm) where the centroid peak does not, and all 39 gauge-2 designs stay feasible; stylised, preliminary.
- Does the peak stress at the fillet tangent point of the L-bracket converge under graded mesh refinement?Does the L-bracket's peak stress at the fillet tangent point converge under graded mesh refinement? Yes for four designs: it flattens at 1.09–1.14× its 1.5 mm value (0.0–1.1% change over the last 4× refinement down to 0.025 mm), so the 2 mm region's mesh dependence is a resolution effect; the 16/15/2 design is marginally over 100 MPa when converged; stylised 2D, no reference solution.
- Is the least-mass laser-cut bracket the same on coarse and fine meshes under a patch-averaged stress rule?Under a 3 mm patch-averaged stress rule the least-mass laser-cut bracket is the same on a 2.5 mm and a 1.0 mm mesh (gauge 2: 32.31 vs 32.33 g), while the centroid-peak rule leaves no feasible gauge-2 design on the fine mesh; the patch value hardly sees the fillet radius; stylised, preliminary.
- Do cheap beam and 2D models rank candidate cantilever designs like 3D finite elements?Do cheap beam and 2D models rank cantilever designs like 3D finite elements? Yes on 3 seeds of 80 designs: Kendall τ 0.987–0.996 and the 3D-best design always ranked first, even though single-design merit is off by up to 14%; stubby sections agree least; stylised, one load case.
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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.