Thin may be “in,” but as Desktop Engineering managing editor Jamie Gooch points out in his byline Less Weight Is More in the October 2014 issue, the majority of Americans still struggle with excess weight. Also on the heavy side are many products that design engineers create today.

You know the fix: diet and exercise for those of us carrying a few extra pounds—or “lightweighting” for you engineers who may still be overdesigning in order to look good in your FEA strength simulations. In the engineering realm, peer pressure is mounting as the government gets into the act. In both the United States and Europe, mandates to achieve better gas mileage in vehicles are becoming increasingly stringent. Many companies are taking advantage of advances in material science and software technology to create lighter cars, trucks and other products. Shaving off just a few pounds or kilograms of weight from each item produced can save millions of dollars or euros overall.

Gooch cites the Ford F150 pickup truck as a prime example. The 2015 version is 700 pounds lighter thanks in part to the use of aluminum alloys. Aerospace—Gooch mentions Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier—is another industry putting the products they design on a diet of advanced metals and/or composites. Meanwhile, the steel industry is defending its longtime market lead by working with manufacturers to employ high-strength steel that’s lighter than traditional materials.

If you are not already on the lightweighting bandwagon, you may find yourself pushed onto it soon. But will lighter vehicles—or any other product you’re designing—still be as tough, durable and safe? And can they be made cost effectively without retooling an entire factory? These are questions everyone on your team will need to answer.

Gooch clearly understands that optimization and simulation are key to using less traditional materials or more lighter weight, advanced ones. And with the right simulation data, he points out, topology optimization software can help let you know where material is structurally important to a design. In the SIMULIA community, we know we have a roster of industry-leading tools perfect for such critical work: Abaqus, Isight, Tosca and fe-safe.

The government is helping manufacturers come up with solutions to the strong legislative push for lightweighting by establishing a number of institutes that Gooch hopes will bridge the gap between applied research and product development. In the United States, the Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation Institute and the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute were recently announced, and an institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation is also being established. Read the full article here. And let us know what your team is doing to take the weight off!