Vitalo Industries, located in Meulebeke, has more than 85 years of experience in the production of plastic and insulating parts. As one of the market leaders in their sector, they produce small and medium-sized series for various industrial sectors such as the medical, automotive and mechanical engineering industry. Their drive for innovation led to a Flanders Make membership in two of our competence clusters. In a previous research project, we had already developed an improved structural optimisation method. Together with Vitalo Industries, we have now investigated whether we could optimise this method for thermoforming, a production technique frequently used by Vitalo Industries.
After implementing our optimisation tool on panels of agricultural machinery, it showed that Vitalo Industries could make its design for these panels 20% lighter. The necessary stiffness of the panel was thereby maintained and, in addition, the production cost could be reduced by 15%.
