Research On Structural Design And Optimization Of Aluminum Container

Container is the mainstream tool of modern logistics transportation.The weight of a 20-foot steel container is about 2.1 tons,and the body weight of the container accounts for about 7% of the total weight.High dead weight means the decrease of cargo carrying capacity.Lightweight container is the main development direction of container manufacturing industry,but aluminum container has not been widely used in China.In this paper,the lightweight design of the 20-foot standard container is carried out,and the finite element software Abaqus and optimization software Isight are used to study the design scheme of an all-aluminum container composed of extruded aluminum profiles.Based on the steel container finite element model verified by test,the parametric steel/aluminum container is compared and analyzed.The influence of aluminum alloy material properties on aluminum container design was studied.The structure of aluminum container is designed according to the characteristics of the force and extrusion process of the container.On the basis of structural design,multi-objective optimization of mass components is carried out.The following conclusions are drawn:(1)Through testing steel container on the container test platform,the comparison of data shows that the steel container finite element model established is accurate and effective.(2)The rigidity,strength and process differences of steel/aluminum containers are studied.In the design of all-aluminum container,the primary verification stacking and transverse rigidity test are carried out,and the structure of rear corner column-corner fittings is the key part of the design.Aluminum alloy corner fittings can not be designed according to ISO standard structure;The strength reduction of aluminum alloy welded joint is much greater than that of steel container.The influence of welding heat affected zone on the strength of container must be considered in structural design and finite element analysis.(3)Based on the structural design of all-aluminum container,the structure of the rear corner column is improved.The designed chimeric double-hole corner column-corner fitting structure has good load stability.After the finite element verification,the designed container meets the classification society inspection standard.(4)Multi-objective optimization design was carried out for the section of partial beam-column structure of all-aluminum container.Displacement,stress and mass were selected as objective functions,and the Pareto front of the optimization target was obtained by NCGA-ⅱ algorithm,which improved the overall stiffness and reduced the mass by 24.4kg.The total weight of the designed aluminum container is 1236 kg,and the number of main frame parts is 57.Compared with the steel container,the weight of the aluminum container is reduced by 41.2%,and the number of main frame parts is reduced by 45%.The research results provide a feasible scheme for the development of all aluminum container.