Reducing weight to help win and withstand the rigors of a 24 hour Le Mans race

Summary

Lightweighting specialists as pro engineering used nTop lightweighting tools to design a differential cap for a Le Mans Hypercar (LMH). The cap needed to be as light as possible and optimized for the multiple loadings and harsh conditions it experiences throughout an endurance race.

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About: as pro engineering ltd. is a specialist lightweighting R&D company focused on developing advanced lightweight structures for the world’s top hypercar manufacturers.

• Industry: Automotive
• Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
• Application: Lightweighting

The project

Optimizing a multifunctional differential cap

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The differential cap is part of the gearbox housing on an LMH endurance racing car that performs multiple functions. It must be durable enough to withstand a 24-hour race but light enough to help improve the car’s performance. This complex part experiences over 20 individual loading conditions originating from the suspension, rear wing, and rear impact structure, making it an ideal target for lightweighting and topology optimization.

The challenge

Reduce weight, improve durability

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Project ATOMS (Advanced Topology-Optimised Metallic Structures) is as pro engineering's in-house R&D program, dedicated to pushing the boundaries of lightweight engineering. The team selected this part as their next ATOMS project, to create a repeatable process that generates optimized structures for components experiencing multiple load cases: in this case, a combination of static and dynamic loads, fatigue concerns, and the thermal effects from the engine and gearbox.

Winning the 24hrs of Le Mans can often come down to a matter of seconds. When we can save 7.8 seconds of race time by optimizing just one part with the latest lightweighting technology, that is very nearly the difference between winning and losing alone.

Andrew Shedden

Director

as pro engineering

The solution

Optimize for multiple load cases

Using the full complement of lightweighting tools in nTop, including topology optimization, the as pro R&D team were able to optimize the differential cap for several load cases at a time. The result was a new design that was light enough to deliver a potentially race-winning difference in performance. It was also optimized for additive manufacturing, eliminating expensive tooling costs.

The results

• 1 part

  Consolidating 40 components

• 9%

  Weight reduction

• 7.8 seconds

  Faster performance over 24 hrs

• £30,000

  Savings in tooling

Before we started using nTop, we could only simulate one load case at a time. If you're doing each load case within separate simulations and then adding them together, it takes forever, but more importantly, you end up with a heavy, suboptimal component. nTop solves this problem, which was crucial to the outcome of my dissertation project.

Alex Tully

Junior Lightweighting Engineer

as pro engineering

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Why nTop?

The as pro R&D team chose nTop because it is capable of optimizing for multiple load cases simultaneously, which was critical for this application. The team was also attracted to nTop’s fast processing speeds for complex design work and automated workflows that feed directly into finite element analysis (FEA) of the given load cases.

Reusable workflows

The research team saved a great deal of time with nTop’s reusable workflows. To begin, they created a workflow to feed loading conditions into the FEA tool for simulation. This same workflow can be repurposed for any combination of load cases, eliminating the need to create a new workflow for every simulation and significantly reducing the engineering time required to set up similar design projects.

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Explore variants quickly

Accelerating prototype development is essential for endurance racing, a sport dedicated to continuous innovation. With nTop, as pro engineering can test, correlate, and validate their design concepts with a 10x faster feedback loop. Iterating on new ideas more efficiently gives them (and their hypercar clients) an edge when it comes to developing race-winning designs.

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Eliminate tooling costs

The differential cap was specifically designed for additive manufacturing, which removes the high costs of tooling in the previous magnesium cast design. The cost to manufacture the original part totaled approximately £30,000 ($39,362) between the cost of the material, the mold, the fixturing and machining. The cost of 3D printing the topology optimized cap would be £7,000, for a net savings of £23,000.

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Conclusion

Lightweighting tools in nTop enabled a team of hypercar design specialists to develop a significantly lighter part that could deliver a race-winning difference in performance.

Until carbon fiber additive manufacturing catches up, we’ve nearly reached the limit of how far we can push the lightweighting of this part. There's currently no performance left on the table. The next step is applying this process to as many other parts on the car as possible.

Andrew Shedden

Director

as pro engineering

The real value with nTop is its ability to accelerate our dev cycles so we can test and validate ideas as quickly as possible and go around the development loop again and again, quicker and quicker, until we can’t push our lightweighting any further. nTop is key to keeping us and the next generation of hypercars at the forefront of lightweighting technology.

Andrew Shedden

Director

as pro engineering