Design Optimization Techniques in Mechanical Design and Education of Engineers

With each year computerized tools for mechanical design become more comprehensive and contain a great variety of tools for engineers. Using the tools as black box solutions contains a lot of risks. In the field of CAD/CAE in mechanical design one of the hot topics is the optimization of the shape of a structure complying to certain boundary conditions to make a structure lighter and thus more economic. Although these techniques have been described a long time ago, through to recent developments in additive manufacturing and other prototyping techniques which make it possible to make the resulting structures, the tools are currently gaining a lot of importance and are being implemented. In the article we consider a case study to show the differences between topological and parametrical optimization for the same task. Based on this example the authors would like to stress the importance of the correct implementation of these two approaches and the importance of teaching the methodology and not only tools in the engineering study.