Additive Manufacturing: Redesign and Prototyping New Oil Distributor for Electrical Heavy-Duty Application; Investing Cost Reduction, Weight Reduction and Function Integration

This report presents the outcomes of an internship conducted at FPT Industrial S.P.A., a prominent company located in Turin, Italy. The project aimed to redesign an oil distributor component for heavy-duty electric commercial vehicles, leveraging the flexibility of additive manufacturing. The focus of improvements encompassed three key areas: fluid performance, structural performance, and costs. Utilizing Fusion 360 and nTop, fluid and structural topology optimization studies were the primary methodologies employed. The results demonstrate significant enhancements to the existing oil distributor design, achieving a notable 25.87% reduction in pressure drops for water channels and 22.18% for oil channels. Structural optimization yielded an impressive 85.91% reduction in mass. In summary, the performance of the original design was markedly enhanced across all aspects. Further details are elaborated in the subsequent sections of this paper.