The conceptual design of a high container weight reduced by topology optimisation method

With the passing of humans through the settled past, the transfer of raw materials, food, fuel, and technology to the different communities has begun. With the development of technology, goods transported by animal on the road began to be transported by ships in the sea and rivers, then by railway, and then by airway. Throughout history, freight transport has brought civilizations closer together. With the industrial revolution, developed ports were formed in regions close to developing industrial regions. Developed vessels and ports have made it possible to move freight faster, safer and cheaper. Nowadays, with the import and export volume reaching this level, the importance of transportation has increased. It has evolved into an integrated structure that covers all processes from the first producer to the last consumer. If transportation is grouped under four main headings as airway road, railway and sea road, maritime transport still holds the largest share in international trade, as it is easy to transport loads in the largest tonnage at a time. In recent years, economic cirises have been forced to be economy-focused, as in other sectors, despite the technological advances. It is aimed to reduce costs and increase profitability. New types of vessels have been developed to increase the load capacity and to reduce the duration of flights, such as increasing the capacity of the equipment in order to shorten porting and handling times. Along with the development of the concept of industrial society, countries have expressed their own development and prosperity levels with the rate of industrialization they have. The automotive industry is also a building block of a developed society. In order for the one society to become industrialized, it must have its own automotive industry. An advanced automotive industry has brought together an advanced automotive transport system. The automotive industry has an important share in world automotive production when it is evaluated on the scale of our country. Turkey's foreign car production is under different licenses for different brands. Cars, trucks, vans, buses, minibuses, midibuses and tractors are produced. The total capacity of production facilities is close to two million vehicles a year. Most of the vehicles produced are export-oriented. In 2016 alone, 1.5 million vehicles were produced and 1 million vehicles were exported. For this reason, the car manufacturing has become more suitable for the locomotive sector definition in Turkish economy. However, the increasing competition in recent years and the economic crises have caused the automotive industry and all the sectors in parallel to move towards cost reduction. The easiest way to reduce costs is to reduce the amount of time spent or to reduce the amount of material used to a minimum. In other words, to bring the productivity to the maximum point. Optimization methods developed at this point are introduced. In this thesis, topology optimization method with objective function is used for minimum material usage. Topology optimization is used at the beginning of the design process to ensure optimal material distribution and to determine load paths. The goal in optimization is to achieve optimal design by providing constraints such as displacement, stiffness, natural frequency. The objective function of the optimization problems is to maximize or minimize the function. For example, to minimize product price or to maximize stiffness results. In Turkey, passenger cars are produced in May 2018 are examined according to the Turkish automotive production facilities. As seen in the review, the vehicles produced are in the B- and C-segment class and the size and weight segment measurements are included. When both Turkey considered global automotive logistics produced and exported outside PCC passenger ships of automobiles, intended to transport an intermodal container with taşımacık method. When studies on container and marine car logistics are examined, it is seen that most of the containers used for automobile transportation are not suitable for intermodal transportation. The containers used are suitable only for rail or road transport, depending on their size and weight. Containers developed for carrying cars on the seagoing are generally obtained by placing car carrier suspension devices in general load containers of 40 feet and 20 feet. The weight of an empty carousel is further increased with subsequent transport and hanging apparatuses. For this reason, the use of vehicle carriers currently used in marine automotive logistics increases costs. All these reasons, theses within the scope of Turkey's produced according to car size and weight, ISO freight containers measure 40 feet in length suitable for this reason, intermodal transportation, 4 carrying capacity of up to cars, from a structural point of a highly tailored to the Turkish Lloyd rules (higher -cube) container conceptual design. Topology optimization was carried out by using the target values stated in the structural point of view as a constraint according to the principles stated in the rule book titled "Principles of Construction, Repair and Test of Freight Containers" before the conceptual design, Türk Loydu Volume D, Section 55. The goal is to define constraints if minimum mass is defined. For completed conceptual design, a finite element model is created. The necessary structural analyzes were made in the relevant Turkish Loydu rulebook. According to the analysis results, the displacement and strain values found are in the targets. The conceptual design seems to be suitable for the car carrier high container, marine transport and four car safely. Moreover, the conceptual design made at the end of the thesis is 30% lighter than an ordinary overhead container.