Lessons Learnt from a National Competition on Structural Optimization and Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Background:: As an advanced design technique, topology optimization has received much attention over the past three decades. Topology optimization aims at finding an optimal material distribution in order to maximize the structural performance while satisfying certain constraints. It is a useful tool for the conceptional design. At the same time, additive manufacturing technologies have provided unprecedented opportunities to fabricate intricate shapes generated by topology optimization. Objective:: To design a highly efficient structure using topology optimization and to fabricate it using additive manufacturing. Method:: The bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) technique provides the conceptional design, and the topology-optimized result is post-processed to obtain smooth structural boundaries. Results:: We have achieved a highly efficient and elegant structural design which won the first prize in a national competition in China on design optimization and additive manufacturing. Conclusion:: In this paper, we present an effective topology optimization approach to maximize the structural load-bearing capacity and establish a procedure to achieve efficient and elegant structural designs. : In the loading test of the final competition, our design carried the highest loading and won the first prize in the competition, which demonstrates the capability of BESO in engineering applications.