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Constructing self-supporting structures in biscale topology optimization

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Abstract

The self-supporting requirement is very necessary in additive manufacturing so that the printed structure will not collapse during fabrication. Imposing the self-supporting constraint on topology optimization allows for designing a performance optimized structure that is ready-to-print. However, although biscale topology optimization has been widely studied, conducting self-supporting topology optimization separately for the macro-structure and for each micro-structure is not sufficient to produce an overall self-supporting structure, as first observed in this study. The issue is resolved via an approach to bridge the gap between the requirements of self-supporting at the two scales via distinguishing the macro-cells based on their relative locations. In addition, the self-supporting constraint is expressed as a simple quadratic function included in the topology optimization in both scales, and a convolution operator is designed to efficiently implement its detection. Ultimately, a completely self-supporting overall structure is generated within a biscale topology optimization framework and extends its potentiality to produce design to be directly fabricated via additive manufacturing. Performance of the approach is demonstrated via various 2D and 3D examples.

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Acknowledgements

The valuable comments from the anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated. The work described in the study is partially supported by National Key Research and Development Program (No. 2020YFC2201303), and the NSF of China (No. 61872320).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Dengyang Zhao, Yusheng Liu, Shuming Gao & Ming Li

  2. Department of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Ting Ting Gu

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  1. Dengyang Zhao
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  2. Ting Ting Gu
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Correspondence to Ming Li.

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Zhao, D., Gu, T.T., Liu, Y. et al. Constructing self-supporting structures in biscale topology optimization. Vis Comput 38, 1065–1082 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-021-02068-8

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