Some recent news on microstructure design:
Article about MIT on CNN
Article about Boeing on Forbes
Microstructure determines material properties. With 3D printing technology, we can fabricate tailored microstructure which is optimal for specific purpose. More over, the microstructure can vary in geometry and density throughout the structure, thus allowing boundless exotic functionalities.
Refer to this video […]
This plate is support along its bottom surface and subjected to a uniform impulse load over its top surface. Color indicates the total (strain plus kinetic) energy history. By optimizing the microstructure we focus the energy to the bottom center region. Le, C., T. E. Bruns, and D. A. Tortorelli, “Material Microstructure Optimization for Energy […]
Currently, most CAD software uses a handful of basic shapes to represent the surface of 3D objects. This has been satisfactory, but only in a self-restricted way at most. When we have tools to generate optimal geometries, we often run into trouble interpreting it using this traditional CAD representation. The picture below shows an attempt […]
There have been some discussion on this and I am just summarizing ideas.
Accessibility. There are a handful of commercial structural optimization packages available and they are pretty expensive. Small companies and individuals find it difficult to justify the large upfront cost. Large corporations may not have problem buying several licenses, but they still fall short […]
There is a bit of history in the name. At first, people started optimizing things like truss member sizes. This is called Size Optimization. Then came Shape Optimization to answer questions like what is the optimal shape for the openings in the web of an I-beam. Shape optimization is a bit more sophisticated than size […]
