Design and Optimization of Conforming Lattice Structures

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 2019

Jun Wu	Weiming Wang	Xifeng Gao
TU Delft	TU Delft	Florida State University

From left to right: Given a design domain with specified external loads, our method optimizes the distribution of lattice materials for maximizing stiffness. From the optimized, locally-defined lattice configuration, a globally connected lattice structure is compiled, and fabricated by 3D printing.

Abstract

Inspired by natural cellular materials such as trabecular bone, lattice structures have been developed as a new type of lightweight material. In this paper we present a novel method to design lattice structures that conform with both the principal stress directions and the boundary of the optimized shape. Our method consists of two major steps: the first optimizes concurrently the shape (including its topology) and the distribution of orthotropic lattice materials inside the shape to maximize stiffness under application-specific external loads; the second takes the optimized configuration (i.e. locally-defined orientation, porosity, and anisotropy) of lattice materials from the previous step, and extracts a globally consistent lattice structure by field-aligned parameterization. Our approach is robust and works for both 2D planar and 3D volumetric domains. Numerical results and physical verifications demonstrate remarkable structural properties of conforming lattice structures generated by our method.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the LEaDing Fellows Programme at the Delft University of Technology, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No.~707404. Weiming Wang wishes to thank the Natural Science Foundation of China (No.~61702079, U1811463).

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Bibtex

@article{Wu2019TVCG, 
    author={Wu, Jun and Wang, Weiming and Gao, Xifeng}, 
    title={Design and Optimization of Conforming Lattice Structures}, 
    journal={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics}, 
    year={2021}, 
    volume={27}, 
    number={1}, 
    pages={43-56}, 
    doi={http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2019.2938946}, 
    ISSN={1077-2626}, 
    month={January},
    note={https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.02902}
    }