lightweight design

By integrating specific material properties through the manufacturing process Selective Laser Melting (SLM) into a topology optimization, the product engineer can be supported by simulation in the design process. For this purpose, a topology optimization method is being developed which takes the process-specific material properties of the SLM into account during the optimization process. This method is part of a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In this article, the influence of these specific material properties on the design is presented.

Based on the specification of the European Pallet Association (EPAL) and GS1 the Pallet-Tagging-Robot (PaTRo) was developed. Special about the patented robot is that it can climb pallet stacks without additional equipment and can attach two RFID transponders to each pallet. During the whole process for tagging each pallet of the stack PaTRo is just supported by the stack. That is why PaTRo is very flexible and mobile for being moved to the location where the tagging should take place. For realizing the described features the construction of the robot is based on lightweight design.