Ye, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-6857-7450, Guo, Q., Lu, H. et al. (4 more authors) (2023) Topology optimisation of self-supporting structures based on the multi-directional additive manufacturing technique. Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 18 (1). e2271458. ISSN 1745-2759
Abstract
Although additive manufacturing (AM) continues to gain widespread adoption, the overhang problem remains a critical issue affecting printing quality. The design of self-supporting structures via topology optimisation approaches has been extensively studied. However, current optimisation research predominantly focuses on 3-axis AM machines, overlooking the more recently developed multi-axis machines. Moreover, the performance sacrifice due to overhang constraints in 3-axis AM can be significant, especially in structures with small volume fractions. To address this, we propose a two-step approach considering overhang constraints for multi-axis AM. This approach begins with a structure optimised using traditional topology optimisation. In the first step, a new optimisation problem determines printing surfaces for the given structure. If the proportion of unprintable elements isn't satisfactory, a second re-optimisation step is carried out to further reduce the unprintable proportion. Several examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Notably, the significant performance sacrifice associated with the 3-axis AM approach becomes negligible when applying our multi-axis AM-based method.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
Keywords: | Topology optimisation; multi-axis additive manufacturing; overhang constraints; self-supporting structures; performance sacrifice |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > SWJTU Joint School (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2024 17:10 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jan 2024 17:10 |
Published Version: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17452... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/17452759.2023.2271458 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:208168 |