DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

Additive Manufacturing, Topology Optimization, Lattice Structures, Field-Driven Design, Finite Element Method

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

The rapid advancement of additive manufacturing (AM) technology and computational design techniques has unveiled a promising synergy between these two fields. The high print resolution achievable nowadays enables the pro-duction of intricate shapes, such as lattice structures, which can be further opti-mized through simulation-driven design techniques such as topology optimization (TO). This paper presents an optimization workflow that leverages field-driven design to employ the results of a TO to locally vary the diameter of lattice struc-tures, aiming for weight reduction and stiffness maximization. The process in-volves the automation of nTop design software via Python scripts to systemati-cally evaluate design variants and identify optimal solutions. The workflow steps are demonstrated through the application to a connecting rod and conclude with the evaluation of the achieved mechanical performance of the optimized compo-nent via Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis.
Keywords: Additive Manufacturing, Topology Optimization, Lattice Structures, Field-Driven Design, Finite Element Method.