A novel complex network-based modeling method for heterogeneous product design

Abstract

Heterogeneous Objects (HEO) which refer to product models with spatially different material compositions or structures have attracted extensive attention from different disciplines due to emerging techniques in design and manufacturing in the last decade. The recent additive manufacturing technologies have bridges the gap between the design and manufacture for HEO. In this paper, through the comparative study among 10 CAD modeling methods and 27 HEO, it is found that the existing methods and tools cannot model these complex structures because HEO derive their properties not from the properties of the base materials, but from their newly designed structures. A novel HEO modeling method based on complex networks theory is proposed. It models component cells as nodes and force relationship among them as edges. The complex network is introduced to represent the HEO as their topological structures are very similar. The modelling of complex structures based on 2D and 3D topology deriving from evolving models of complex networks is carried out to validate the feasibility of the proposed method.