BAC Mono applies generative design to reduce wheel weight and production time.

British supercar manufacturer Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) and an Autodesk research team have unveiled the BAC Mono, a supercar built using generative design with the goal of reducing wheel design time and weight.
Generative design is provided in Autodesk’s integrated CAD/CAM/CAE software Fusion 360 and is a design solution that generates various design options based on artificial intelligence and cloud computing technology to match conditions entered by the user, such as durability, flexibility, and weight.

Using this, the two companies conducted tests on wheel manufacturing methods and materials, and as a result, aluminum material and 3-axis and 5-axis machining methods were confirmed to be the most suitable solutions for producing BAC Mono front wheels.

The generatively designed wheel meets all the strict certification requirements required in Europe, while reducing the weight to 2.2 kg, which is 35% lighter than the 3.42 kg weight of a wheel produced by conventional CNC milling. Fusion 360's generative design algorithms execute thousands of operations per minute and provide design options optimized for wheel production in just four hours, contributing to a reduction in work time.
The newly unveiled BAC Mono has a body weight of 570 kg, which is much lighter than its predecessor, and also achieves 332 brake horsepower (bhp) and over 400 Newton meters (Nm) of torque with its turbocharged engine.

Each body panel is made of graphene-reinforced carbon fiber, reducing vehicle weight while increasing material strength.

Stephen Hooper, Vice President and General Manager of Autodesk Fusion 360 Products, stated, “New technologies are transforming automotive design, and the automotive industry’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions have brought greater innovation to automotive design and manufacturing. We expect that lightweight approaches utilizing generative design, as demonstrated by BAC Mono, will play a pivotal role in the future expansion of the electric vehicle market and the improvement of power consumption.”