This report is a master thesis in mechanical engineering conducted by a student at Luleå University of Technology. The thesis was done at Gestamp Hardtech in Luleå. The goalof the master thesis was to explore if topology optimization was a appropriate approachin order to reduce the weight of a car body component, in this project the patch of aB-pillar were the component which would be optimized.

The project started with a literature study in order to get a grasp of how topology opti-mization is widely used and understand how topology optimization works. Some simple

cases to get acquainted with the different software were made and further on some realcases of a B-pillar assembly. The software explored was Nx topology optimization fordesigners and LS-TaSC. The project started off with main focus on the Nx topologyoptimization for designers. When the insight that the software wasn’t suitable for thisspecific case, LS-TaSC got main focus, due to the accessibility and common knowledgeof LS-DYNA that was available on site. The project ended with a full car simulation ofthe final result from LS-TaSC to verify that the optimized patch had the same behaviourand ratings in the IIHS side crash- and roof strength test as the reference patch. The

new optimized patch performed as good as the reference patch regarding structural per-formance and IIHS ratings, while the final design were 14.6 % lighter then the already

optimized reference patch.As further work, a well thorough methodology that would be an efficient tool in the workto reduce weight of car body components should be developed. This methodology shouldbe a natural part of the product development process to those car body componentsthat’s suitable for the application.