Generative Design in Our Daily Lives

NILS BRÜDIGAM: Yeah. Hello, everyone. And yeah, it's nice to hear from you, or see you, or at least you can see me. For today's talk at Autodesk University the topic will be generative design in our daily lives.

So I did split this talk in three topics, who, what, and why. And this is what we are going to talk about. First, we're going to start with the who. I guess you have an idea of what we're going through now.

Well, yeah. Who is me. And I'm going-- so who am I? My name is Nils Brüdigam. I do have a master's degree of science in naval architecture and ocean engineering.

And I'm working in Germany, but I'm here for you all over the world. Just give me an email, and yeah. I will come back to you during my office hours. And we can schedule a talk, or anything.

I'm specialized in structural dynamics, fluid dynamics, and additive manufacturing. This is what I do all day long, and I love it. It's a great topic, and this is why I'm going to talk to you about generative design.

Well, I'm not working for myself. I'm working in a company, Man and Machine. We have 1000-plus employees, 244 million euro of revenue in 2020, 75 subsidiaries in 22 countries, with over 37 years of market experience. So I guess you could say we're here quite a long time. And I think the biggest factor for our company are our 1000-plus employees from all different fields of CAD and data driven processes.

This is what we do. We try to digitalize everything you need to work with in your daily lives and keep it simple. That's the whole part.

So generative design is-- or, generative design in our daily lives. What are we talking about now? So the what. The second part.

When we want to talk about generative design we need to talk about the design process. How do you design parts? How do you design assemblies nowadays? And I can only say this for myself, but I think I have quite a good understanding on how a lot of my customers are working, , and I guess maybe you, as well. So how do you design?

Well, first, you get a task, right? The task at hand is, for, me I'm a naval architect. Something very familiar would be, bring people from A to B in summer and back from B to A. And in winter, we want to transport paper, for example, as we don't have that many people who are trying to go on vacation. I think that's a very specific task you can adjust-- or you can work with. Then you start how many ships do you need, and stuff like that. And then, you start your design process.

And when you are in your design process, you have a rough idea of what you want to do, right? So and then, you think about how to do stuff, and how to do-- or how to fulfill your design needs, isn't that you think about your specific set of possibility.

So you have different sizes of beams, I beams, T beams. And then you start to attach them together. You try to weld plates to it, and you use bolts, and washers, and connectors to connect all things together. And in the end, you get a big assembly. This assembly, in my case, called a ship. But this is where you start your design process [INAUDIBLE].

So if you think about it, the traditional design concept you have a rough idea of what to do. You may have different ideas, and then you start to draw them. While drawing them you see, hey, this one's not working, that one's not working. And you start to evaluate your different parts.

When you evaluated those, or what is evaluation? Well, you check for manufacturability, for example. This is one part. You also check if you can get all the parts in the correct sizes. If you-- do you have any specific needs you forgot about?

So this is what you do all day long. That you think about those concepts, but you are always limited on what you see, or what you have experienced in your daily life of design. And so, for example, those frames in specific. And if you are a good designer then you already take the manufacturability into account. And then you might get out with a good solution.

For example, on this frame part of a motorbike, on the right-hand side, you can see some cutouts to make it lighter. Maybe this consists maybe of two parts to put them together, or even of one part. And you can 5-- you can mill it with the 5-axis mill, for example. This is what you get out. So you have your clear design task at hand.

Here, you'll need to attach a wheel. You need to attach this rear part to the mainframe of your motorcycle. And then you, in the end, you have your part. After your evaluation and the check for manufacturability there is another test you have [INAUDIBLE]. This is the validation.

What is validation? This is a simulation part or a testing part. Usually it would be the testing part we are talking about here. Testing for structural stiffness, for example.

You have specific loads, you have specific boundary conditions your part needs to fulfill. So how can we even speed this one up? You can start with, for example, on the structural side Autodesk NETFABB and IN-CAD. This would be your structural FEA software. You can also do heat with it, but let's focus on the structural part.

So you have those loads, and you try to bring them into your part. And in the end, after you have chosen it, you see how my safety factor is too low. It's 2 and I wanted it to be 5. So you start again.

Where do you start? Your traditional design process and your concepts. You try to rethink your concepts. Do I need to make my part thicker? Where do I need to add stiffness? Stuff like that.

And then, again, you have to evaluate your part, and you have to manufacture your part. And after that, you start again with the validation of your part. So there's a lot of time invested on this case. And if you do not do any kind of simulation you are doing this on actual tests, not in your computer. It's even more time you are spending here. And this time spent, and also money spent.

This is always a crucial part, right? You need to have a cheap part. And if you spend too much money on your testing, the part will not be cheap anymore, as you'll spend too much money. It's that simple. So in the end, we want to have a part that works from the beginning or in your first test. That would be the first time right principle. And you can do that by using structural simulation.

This would be the first part. And this is also what we are going to focus on in this talk and how generative design works. But I still want to talk about the other simulation features we do have with Autodesk.

The other two parts would be fluid simulation, as in Autodesk CFD computational fluid dynamics. You can see here the flow through a heat exchanger. In this case, it's a high heat exchanger and you can do fluid movement as well as temperatures. Also coupled, if you want to do something like a heat sink, or stuff like this. But you could also do external aerodynamics.

When we come back to this motorcycle part you can do the simulation part on this one, as well, and check if this one validates for your specific test case. You need to have some kind of track and lift coefficient for your motorcycle, [INAUDIBLE] MotoGP, but still, you need this, right?

Also you want to have a good track and lift coefficient for your car, especially a drag coefficient would be nice, probably for your airplane. I don't know if you have one. I don't, but yeah. It might be that you do have one. You need a nice lift coefficient, while your drag coefficient is minimized. So this would be something you also need to validate for.

And well, I think we are coming to generative design, or manufacturable-- or manufacturability. We nowadays have to talk about additive manufacturing. It's still kind of new on the market. I would say, if are not doing it already and not validating your options in additive, you're already a bit behind with your company. But you will always be able to get back in there. We can help you on that one.

And also, you may need some stimulation for additive manufacturing, especially when you are working on metal additive manufacturing you need supports which keep your pot on your build plate. You'll need to check for distortion, or for your displacement for the internal stresses of your parts. And once you've removed your part from your build plate, how will it deform? Will it deform too much, so that this will not be the part you can use anymore? So those are really interesting parts you need to look out for.

So now this, I think we're talking a lot about this traditional design process, right now. So we have different concepts, we evaluate them, we check for manufacturability and in the end, we validate them till we produce them. So we have a very long time to market. And this is where generative design comes in quite handy.

So it brings me to the third part of my talk today. Why generative design? ? And what is generative design? Well, generative design, in general, connects nature and engineering. That's it. We don't do anything else than that. We try to use the nature and bring it to our designs. And this is actually quite easy. So you can see in gray in the background, I would say, the traditional design process of your parts with different concepts. And in the end, you may get to your production part.

Why is the generative design now so much faster? Because we already have multiple validated manufacturable options. And then, something like the right-hand side might-- or you might end up with something like that on the right-hand side. And you have a new part created, which you can print, which you can mill, depending on the manufacturing options you've chosen for.

So let's check again. How and what is generative design? Yeah. We have specific criteria. In this case, I've seen it. It might be mass. It might be volume, something like that.

So in the first place, you specify criterias you want to check for. In structural FEA this is quite easy. That's to say we have a specific safety factor. So stresses we do not want to exceed.

And specific loads. We do have some specific cases. And in the end, we already get thousands of options, and we can choose the one which works the best.

This is the biggest difference between our standard process, where we do get a part in the end, yes. But is it the best part we can create? I have to tell you, it's not. I know, you might be very good. But I think the computer, on this case, can help you and also exceed you and creating specific parts for specific tasks.

So for this task, as we've talked about in your traditionally designed concept, you think about your teams you have at hand, your plates you can use, and your manufacturing methods. Without thinking out of the box you are not starting on a white paper usually. Or, at least, I am not. You may be, I am not.

So where do we start? Yeah. We start on the top-left side for our-- well, this is our given task actually. For the traditional designing process, as well as for our design process in generative design. So we have specific attachment points to our assembly. You can see those long cylindrical surfaces on the top-left side in red. Those might be where you want to put in a screwdriver.

And on the bottom side, you can see-- on the bottom side of this part, you can see the other cylindrical surface, or cylindrical part. This is where you put in some kind of load. So you need to attach your part to something, that's a common one.

So we have those red areas where you need to bring your parts in, where you need to-- some space to-- or fix it to other stuff. This is one part of the obstacle geometry [INAUDIBLE]. So obstacles, we do have those obstacles.

What else is in there in red? Well, that's an obstacle geometry where you are not allowed to bring anything. So this is just space which is taken up from other parts, or where you want to put your load. That would be the same. So in red, obstacle geometry, in general.

And then you have the green part. You can see this small ring on the bottom part, which shines a bit yellow. But, in general this would be your attachment point, where you bring in your load in. This is something you really want to keep.

So you have obstacle geometry and you have geometry you want to keep for your design process, as you are bringing in other parts in here. And the yellow one, this is optional, so not necessarily has to be drawn by you. This is where-- a starting idea on where to start with your part. But you don't need that one. This is just to show you how your traditional design could look like, and to make it a bit easier for the software, you could do that, as, well if you want to follow specific guidelines.

Well, this task is given to you, as I said, in traditional and in generative design. You have space you can use. and you have space you can't use. And you need to attach your part to something else.

But the design for your generative part, you didn't already start with this. So you didn't do anything with-- instead of drawing cylindrical surfaces or cylindrical parts where you want to attach something. So that's quite easy and fast drawn in your design.

What else do we need? We need boundary conditions. Where is my part attached? And where are the loads going to be for my part?

In this case, load on the green cylindrical surface you can see, or the green ring, and the other parts, this is where you will put your screws in. So this is going to be the boundary condition, while the other one is the load.

What else do we need? Well, we need material, but usually you start to use one material. You do not change between different materials, like stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, or something like that. We would just say, OK, I'm using steel. That's it. I mean, like it's cheap. I can see why you are doing it, but there may be a better solution which even might be cheaper. That's possible.

So starting we have to choose from different materials. And we can use multiple materials in your generative design. This will not be-- or you will not be able to even define this in your traditional design, as it would have to design completely different for aluminum than for a steel part. You would have to look for different attachments, and so on.

So we have geometry, we have loads we have boundary conditions, we have material, and what do we need to check for, as well? Well, the manufacturability.

We need to check for manufacturability. It's quite easy. And what do we use here? We have additive manufacturing. We have milling, 5-axis, 3-axis, 2.5-axis milling we can use. And also, we have unrestricted models. And those manufacturing options we can or need to bring into our design process are derived from a specific boundary conditions, as well.

For example, in your additive manufacturing you can't print in the air. So you [INAUDIBLE] have a limited overhang. This limited overhang would be something like 45 degrees. Quite easy to understand and have a look at.

And once we have that, as well, our manufacturing method here, as well, we can check for multiple manufacturing options-- and not only a single one we would have to use for our traditional design. We can click on start and the computer starts working.

And what's happening inside the computer is that it's now taking all those options. It starts to give us different designs. One of those designs might look like the one we see here, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right-- and bottom-right would be the last iteration on this part.

And so we see this very organic design. You can see the rings where your bolts will be to connect it to the other part. You can still see the ring we have on the top-left side, in green. And this will still be in your part. But this is a single part. We can do that by ourselves. That's true.

This one will give you multiple options for all those different manufacturing methods, for all those different materials you had. And now you can choose, not only from a single design, but from thousands or millions of designs. And you can choose by your specified criteria-- volume, mass, or stiffness. And you can combine those, and find your specific best part for this task. Might not be the best part overall, but it's better, right? So you can use this.

So now, looking at this, and this talk is about generative design. In our daily life, those parts do look great. Yes. But will you manufacture those? I mean, like if you are a car manufacturer, and you want to make a fancy gear shifter, or something like this, yes, this might be an option for you. And it's pretty cool. Or if you're really, really driven by lightweight design, for example, as in aerospace, this direct option might be something for you.

But what if you are working in a normal shop? Well, you wouldn't start to manufacture something like this, because we only have to look at it. This is too expensive, right?

But what do we see here? We see how the forces are aligned. There where we do have big parts, or where our part is big we have lots of stresses, or we have lots of forces going through our part. And this is where I tell you think smart, don't think hard. Yeah.

On the left side, you can see the old part of a German manufacturer called Claudius Peters. And this part is on a single machine in hundreds, and it weighs 150 kilograms. So this is super heavy. And well, every kilogram of math you have to pay for. So this is also a super expensive part.

And think about the top-right design, you wouldn't start to manufacture this in the thousands, as it's already looking way too expensive. But what you can take from there is, how do your forces, how do your stresses align? Then you can take the one on the bottom-right, right side.

This is just plates with stiffness on it. So this is traditionally welded. You have your traditional plate back to your traditional design, right? But you have a way better understanding of what is actually happening in your part. And you are adding stiffness where you need it, just by using those specific designs.

And this is, I think, nowadays the greatest advantage of generative design is not that it will give you a fancy looking part-- I mean, that's cool for all of us, yes. But in our daily lives this is the result we are going to work with, as this one's cheap, and it gives you the possibility to adjust for-- and you can just create it with your traditional methods. So this is where I would say, our generative design is going to be.

So now we did take a very hard look on those traditional MFG topics. But generative design, as I've said before, is not only working in MFG. I'm from the structural part of ships, and I'm also looking at the fluid dynamic part of ships. And I have seen code working on the nose of a ship, or the underwater nose of a ship. And you can optimize your CFD code, or the shape of your nose using a CFD code with the generative design. And this does work. This is really cool.

Another MFG example. Whereas is this nature connection to our design process. Autodesk has a specific showcase together with Airbus, on, I think, it was the A320. They're using the specific cabin separator, which is made specifically for Airbus.

And what did they do? They have been looking on bird bones. And they did use the structural ideas of bird bones, and brought them into their design software. And the growth and the distribution of those beams, which come out of your bird bones-- or, yeah, the idea of your bird bones, which come out of the code, are distributed using the growth rate of fungus. And all this sounds crazy, but it is a super lightweight option in the end, which works perfectly for this case.

So you can see, you have a really nice connection between this nature and the design process, in itself. Another MFG example, but where can you use this, as well? Well, it's in infrastructure, for example.

Let's look at this. We have a specific soil here. And we want to bring in some houses. But to get houses in there, specifically, on those curved surfaces, we need sewer lines, we need streets.

And we need to make sure all the rain is going into the right direction, and going down, and not-- well, we do not want to have a pool somewhere around your house, or even under your house. And then your house is going to go away just because it drains a bit more.

So we can use generative design to automatically create our topological features. And this is, I think, a really, really good example. Now you can adjust for specific corners of your streets. And you can put in specific degrees that the water would run off on those. So I think this is a great, or another great option to check for, or to use generative design in infrastructure.

And where else? Well, Autodesk did use it for their Toronto office. And they did create their specific criterias. Like, how was the light, how far-- what do you want to be away from your coffee machine? What's your work style looking at the coffee machine? I mean, I like coffee but I don't want to be too near to it. That-- the sound will always disturb me. So this is something you can have in mind when creating your office space with a generative design.

Also, especially with the daylight, everybody likes to work in daylight, right? Well, maybe not your kids. They like to live in the basement. But still, I do like to work in daylight. And so, this is something that's really helping. And so you can make your office, or create your office, your initial office design that everybody gets enough of daylight. And I think this is a very, very important part where you can also check for this generative design.

So to sum this up, generative design in our daily lives-- I, personally-- this is always only my opinion, and I might not be correct, but I hope I will be-- is that this generative design is never going to replace you, as a designer. But it will help you to be way more creative on your specific product as you can see where specific forces are distributed, where you can remove stiffness from your part, and where you have to add stiffness to your part. So always think about those terms.

And I think this is also the set where you will need to acquire probably new skills, if you don't already have them, and bring those skill sets into your design that you know how to apply forces, how to check for boundary conditions, and then use those as the generative design approach.

So I hope you did like my talk. Again my name is Nils Brüdigam. I'm working for Man and Machine in Germany as application engineer, and sales, and digital simulation, and additive manufacturing. You can see my mail, or just scan the QR code, and you have all my contact information directly on your mobile.

So thanks for attending this year's Autodesk University. I hope you enjoyed the talk. And I'm very happy to see you, or just talk to you in the live Q&A. I forgot when it is, but it will be soon. So see you then. Bye.