Integrated lightweight design method via structural optimization and path planning for material extrusion

Abstract

Material extrusion technologies have been extending the frontier of manufacturing technologies due to their high flexibility and low cost. Several studies have fulfilled lightweight designs, such as heterogeneous and conformal lattice structures and continuum optimized structures. The existing methods should be further improved according to the technical characteristics of material extrusion. To improve the mechanical performance and manufacturability of material extrusion structures, an integrated design method is proposed in this study. The design domain is discretized into a coarse mesh, and its nodes are connected to generate beam elements. A barrier function algorithm is introduced to find the optimum structural layout with minimum compliance. The design domain is filled by a globally continuous path to optimize the printing process. Various cases and experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm. This research paves a new way for lightweight structural design with high printability and mechanical performance.