Designed and built an aluminium structure to support a calculated load.
The objective of this project was to design, optimize, and fabricate an aluminum structure tailored to support a highly specific target load with minimal structural weight. Our approach required conducting rigorous hand calculations and structural optimization to determine the most efficient load paths while preventing premature buckling or failure at the joints. The final physical build successfully sustained the calculated design load during destructive testing, verifying our structural model against real-world mechanical behavior.
We focused on the structural stress analysis and final assembly manufacturing, managing our dimensional tolerances so the physical components met the desired tolerances. A major technical highlight was balancing our calculations with ease of manufacture. We intentionally designing out unnecessary geometry to minimise fabrication complexity and risk while ensuring the final structure achieved a highly reliable, and overall optimized result.