Topological optimization of energy storage flywheel used in agricultural wheat thresher machine

Wheat thresher machines are always in high demand in the agricultural sector because of the expensive and time-consuming traditional approach. As one of the most substantial components of the wheat thresher machine, an energy storage flywheel design case study is conducted in the present research. Topological optimization is used to produce the optimized topology layout of the flywheel rotor shape in order to maximize the energy storage density, one of the crucial evaluations of the flywheel performance in the wheat thresher machine. This work includes a preliminary design of the flywheel which includes the diameter of the shaft as per the subjected loads and energy stored in the flywheel. The designed flywheel is afterward analyzed via the finite-element tool ANSYS and is defined as the reference flywheel. The reference flywheel is then used for topology optimization where different boundary conditions are considered. The outcomes demonstrate that the flywheel’s final optimized design achieves a higher energy density than the benchmark flywheel. It may be deduced that a flywheel could be designed to have less mass while maintaining the desired performance.