Abstract
Biological structures have excellent mechanical performances including lightweight, high stiffness, etc. However, these are difficult to apply directly to some given complex structures, such as automobile frame, control arm, etc. In this study, a novel bionic design method for skeleton structures with complex features is proposed by the bio-inspired idea of “main-branch and sub-branch”. The envelope model of a given part is established by analyzing the structural functions and working conditions, and the load path is extracted by the load-transferred law as the structural main-branch. Then, the selection criterion of bionic prototype is established from three aspects: load similarity, structural similarity and manufacturability. The cross-sections with high similarities are selected as the structural sub-branch. Finally, the multi-objective size optimization is carried out and a new model is established. The bionic design of a control arm is carried out by the method: structural main-branch is obtained by the load path analysis and structural sub-branch is occupied by the fish-bone structure. The design result shows that the structural stiffness is increased by 62.3%, while the weight is reduced by 24.75%. The method can also be used for other fields including automobile, aerospace and civil engineering.
Highlights
The skeleton structures have been widely used in vehicles, aerospace, aviation and civil engineering because of their universality and foundation
The main-branch of the bionic structure is obtained by the load path analysis, which can get a clear load transfer skeleton
The loads on a given structure are equivalent to the main-branch of the bionic structure and the bionic prototype is selected from three aspects: load similarity, structural similarity and manufacturability
Summary
The skeleton structures have been widely used in vehicles, aerospace, aviation and civil engineering because of their universality and foundation. Biological structures have excellent mechanical performance after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, which provided structural engineers with a lot of creative ideas for addressing the lightweight demands, such as bamboo, honeycomb, waterlily, bone and so on [3,4]. If the biological characteristics are transferred to the engineering structures in the design stage, a lot of creative ideas for structural engineers will be provided to solve the lightweight demand. Many achievements applying biological structures to engineering equipment to achieve lightweight have been carried out [7]. Zhao et al [9] applied the growth law of the waterlily
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