Computer implemented lightweight design method
AssigneePolitecnico Di Milano
InventorsMatteo Bruggi, Ingrid Paoletti
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A computer implemented lightweight design method including: a preliminary homogenization step for defining a material model related to an adopted manufacturing material; a subsequent optimization step for finding an optimal distribution of material density within the design domain; and a final post-processing step to find the geometry for manufacturing; wherein the preliminary homogenization step is performed for deriving the material model for a 2D/3D version of a porous material provided with circular/spherical holes in a Hexagonal Close-Packed (HCP) arrangement, and the post-processing step comprises computing position and size of the circular/spherical holes.
Claims5
A method of manufacturing a lightweight object using an additive manufacturing system, the method comprising:
- by a processor, performing a preliminary homogenization step to define a material model for a porous material provided with non-interconnected circular or spherical holes in a Hexagonal Close-Packed (HCP) arrangement;
- by the processor, performing a subsequent optimization step to determine an optimal distribution of material density within a design domain of the lightweight object;
- by the processor, performing a final post-processing step to generate a final geometry for the lightweight object, wherein the post-processing step comprises computing position and size of the circular or spherical holes based on the optimal distribution of material density;
- and
- fabricating, with the additive manufacturing system, the lightweight object according to the final geometry, wherein the fabricated object comprises a porous microstructure with said circular or spherical holes that are arranged to be self-supporting during fabrication, thereby reducing or eliminating a need for additional printing supports.
An additive manufacturing system for fabricating a lightweight object, the system comprising:
- a) a 3D-printer;
- b) a processor;
- and c) a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to:
- perform a preliminary homogenization step to define a material model for a porous material provided with non-interconnected circular or spherical holes in a Hexagonal Close-Packed (HCP) arrangement;
- perform a subsequent optimization step to determine an optimal distribution of material density within a design domain of the lightweight object;
- perform a final post-processing step to generate a final geometry for the lightweight object, including computing the position and size of the circular or spherical holes based on the optimal distribution of material density;
- and
- control the 3D-printer to fabricate the lightweight object according to the final geometry, wherein the fabricated object comprises a porous microstructure with said circular or spherical holes that are arranged to be self-supporting during fabrication, thereby reducing or eliminating a need for additional printing supports.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.