AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE-AIDED DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF MECHANICAL SPRINGS

ABSTRACT An expert system for design, selection, and optimization of helical compression springs has been developed. The expert system operates with a minimum amount of user input and designs springs to meet the user's specifications without constraint violations. A finite element model of a helical compression spring was built to facilitate analysis and optimization by the ANSYS finite element program. A quantitative approach was developed to determine the limits for the design variables. The optimization process converged to the minimum volume design in 18 iterations in the design example presented. The volume of material was reduced by 58.64%, a considerable savings..