The inspiration for this project stemmed from the example hook design seen on Fusion 360 tutorials. This hook is one I use for wing foil to keep the 'wing' leashed to your body. Typically these hooks can be aluminium or plastic but I find they tend to be quite expensive and uncomfortable. I reached out to my friend who had previously designed and printed one, and he told me how it wasn't strong enough. I therefore hope that generative design could offer the opportunity to improve the strength characteristics of a hook's design using Autodesk Fusion 360.

Step 1: Dimensions & Design

Having found what dimensions and typical hook may have, and my friend gave me the dimensions of his (previously) function hook design, I had a template to create obstacles and preservable geometries for my generative design. The import dimensions to transfer across, are firstly the slot size used to attach the hook to the human belt as seen above. Secondly, the hook shape ad diameter. For the most part, the shape can vary and it is relatively easy to shape since the wing pulls in a direction raging from 30 to 90 degrees (vertical).

Step 2: Building Design Model

In order to create a functioning hook, I created these few critical components in the design window:

Base Plate - This is a regular sketch which is extruded (10 x 70 x 80 mm)
Hook - The hook was sketched and then extruded on the central x-axis of the base to make a symmetrical hook, roughly modelled on the shape of a professionally designed top of the market wing foil hook.
Hook Base - this is the connection point between the hook and the base plate. Hopefully, the generative design will improve this from the simple block it is
Belt Hole - (40 x 16 mm) extruded sketch through the hook base (with 4mm filleted corners)

Step 3: Generative Design (Preserve & Obstacle Geometaries)

I then moved into the generative design menu to instruct the program how to deal with each of the bodies I had created. These four elements have a few critical roles here:

Base Plate - seen above as a preserved geometry, this is an added feature I think could improve the comfort of the hook since it will distribute and force felt by the user on their belt more widely, and hopefully not dig in when the belt is tight. It also provides a wide foundation that could potentially hold material to increase the support structure of the hook, if the generative design analysis sees fit.
Hook - this is seen above and is made up of 2 elements. Firstly the hook itself is a preserved geometry. The other element is an obstacle geometry which blocks the program from filling the space in front of the hook where the kite will be hooked in and out of
Hook Base - This is a preserved geometry block connected to the base plate
Belt Hole - This obstructive geometry is a separate body, that goes through the Hook Base

Step 4: Design Conditions

The design conditions why simplified to 3 different elements:

Gravity acts at every point on the hook (yellow arrow above)
The base is assumed to be fixed, as this is rooted to the human's belt
The hook experiences a pull force from the wing. This force may have concentrations and complex direction fluctuation. It has been simplified here to act on the inside of the hook as an evenly spread force of 200N which matches some of the engineering spec seen on commercial bought plastic wingfoil hooks.

Step 5: Design Criteria

Step 6: 1st Attempt Generation

The first generated attempt didn't achieve the results I expected. I assumed that firstly my safety factor needs to be increased. Secondly, the evenly distributed load of 200N may not be a conservative assumption for the stress loads that the hook might experience in practice. I will reduce the area of effect and increase the load to hopefully achieve a hook that is over-spec'd since I would rather have too much material used to guarantee optimal strength.

Step 7: Preview & 2nd Attempt Generation

I created a preview before I generated the improved hook. Here, the results look more promising and closer to my expectations. The hook is better reinforced.

Step 8: Improvement Analysis

There are some elements of the hook here, that I think could be improved.

The flat base originally added as a preserved geometry did not stop the program from adding material below the base. This isn't ideal for the hook to sit flat against the rider's body.
The edges of the hook still have sharp edges where the generated smooth edges do not link up. I think this could cause problems during printing, and is also not optimal for strength

Step 9: Flat Base

I added a base blocking obstacle geometry to prevent the design extend below

Step 10: Filleted Hook

I added fillets to those corners that the generative design left jagged or badly designed points for 3D printing.

Step 11: 3rd Attempt Generation

In the preview I was presented with these 3 options, these immediately looked like improvements.

Step 12:

Here is the final generative design I picked. I think it should be a stronger option that a basic hook, and should be lightweight relative to the metal options avaliable.