Case Study: Monash Motorsport achieves 30% weight reduction and improved stiffness with Altair OptiStruct

Monash Motorsport takes advantage of optimization and additive manufacturing technologies and wins again

Monash Motorsport, a student-run Formula SAE team from Monash University, faced the challenge of reducing unsprung mass and improving performance while keeping development time and costs under control. To pursue titanium uprights and hubs that would be interchangeable with their existing hardware, they turned to Altair’s simulation tools—using the Altair HyperWorks Suite and OptiStruct—to optimize designs for additive manufacturing.

Altair’s OptiStruct topology optimization and the HyperWorks-driven simulation workflow defined ideal material distribution within the given geometry, and the optimized titanium upright was produced via additive manufacturing by CSIRO (using election beam melting). The result: about a 30% weight reduction while increasing stiffness, using less than half the titanium of traditional methods, drastically shorter lead times (printing took a day), and lower development cost—outcomes achieved with Altair’s tools that helped the team further improve their racecar performance.

Monash Motorsport

Mark Stroud

Monash Motorsport