Siemens blog by Drew Burkhalter, used the Star Wars AT-ST Walker to illustrate a real engineering challenge: how to make a structure lighter without weakening it, and how to predict its crash behavior before it’s built.
Using Simcenter Radioss, OptiStruct, and PhysicsAI, engineers simulated impact damage, optimized the structure to reduce mass while protecting the pilot seats and central cannons from damage, and trained an AI model that produced crash predictions in less time than a full simulation. This approach reflects how automotive and aerospace teams evaluate structural safety and weight trade-offs early in design, before physical prototypes are built.
Image generated by: ChatGPT
