Abstract
For the past few decades, topology optimization (TO) has been used as a structural design optimization tool. With the passage of time, this kind of usage of TO has been extended to many application fields and branches, thanks to a better understanding of how manufacturing constraints can achieve a practical design solution. In addition, the advent of additive manufacturing and its subsequent advancements have further increased the applications of TO, raising the chance of competitive manufacturing. Design for additive manufacturing has also promoted the adoption of TO as a concept design tool of structural components. Nevertheless, the most frequent applications are related to lightweight design with or without design for assembly. A general approach to integrate TO in concept designs is still missing. This paper aims to close this gap by proposing guidelines to translate design requirements into TO inputs and to include topology and structural concerns at the early stage of design activity. Guidelines have been applied for the concept design of an inner supporting frame of an ancient bronze statue, with several constraints related to different general design requirements, i.e., lightweight design, minimum displacement, and protection of the statue’s structural weak zones to preserve its structural integrity. Starting from the critical analysis of the list of requirements, a set of concepts is defined through the application of TO with different set-ups (loads, boundary conditions, design and non-design space) and ranked by the main requirements. Finally, a validation of the proposed approach is discussed comparing the achieved results with the ones carried out through a standard iterative concept design.
Highlights
Topology optimization (TO) naturally gives a wider set of possibilities and a larger degree of freedom with regard to the design space availability, as compared to size and shape optimization
The advent of additive manufacturing and its subsequent advancements further increased the applications of topology optimization with regard to a feasible manufacturing of complex geometries without any remodeling
The sensitivity to its effect has been introduced to understand its relevance in the final reaction, considering that it may be redundant to S1
Summary
Topology optimization (TO) naturally gives a wider set of possibilities and a larger degree of freedom with regard to the design space availability, as compared to size and shape optimization. Though several manufacturing constraints could have been considered in order to facilitate conventional manufacturing, a process of remodeling of the optimized design was required for achieving a feasible manufacturing. This procedure resulted in an increase of the final mass of the piece, and in an increase of the design processing time. The advent of additive manufacturing and its subsequent advancements further increased the applications of topology optimization with regard to a feasible manufacturing of complex geometries without any remodeling (or, in a few cases, with little remodeling operations connected to specific AM constraints)
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