In high performance engineering, the mass of a component is often singled out as a key performance differentiator. In motorsport, this can be the difference in finding the perfect car setup and beating your competitors or in aerospace and the space/satellite industries it is critical factor on projected running costs i.e. more mass, the more fuel required for the journey, the higher the running costs.

As the design engineer, you have a direct input and control over the finished mass of a component/assembly.

“What is the minimum, achievable wall thickness that I can target?”

With modern advancements of computer controlled systems, the majority of high performance components will usually feature a stage of CNC machining for finishing operations or even completely machining the component from a billet of stock material. When designing components which are to be CNC machined, the manufacturability of the component is critical! Too thin and the component won’t have enough material to resist the machining stresses, too much and your leaving performance on the table.

Due to the high precision nature of CNC machining the following can be used as a rough guide for the minimum wall thickness that can be achieved for the respective materials.

In some applications, lower minimum wall thickness’ can be achieved however, in order to achieve this: machine setup, tolerances, time, cost and scrap rate can soon escalate. Therefore, as the designer having a good sense of balance between the performance gains, project budgets and timelines can be a huge advantage.