Microstructure-Based Topology Optimization for Air-Platform Structural Components Made by Additive Manufacturing

Topology optimization (TO) has become a relatively mature field utilized in the fields of aeronautical, civil, mechanical and materials engineering. For a given design domain, TO seeks to find the optimal distribution of material to maximize some performance metric (e.g. compliance, stiffness, strength) subject to constraints (e.g. max weight, cost, manufacturability). The typical case study is to find a maximally stiff structure given a minimum weight or volume of material.Successful, accelerated, and cost-effective utilization of TO for additive manufacturing requires accounting for anisotropic material data.Insertion of microstructure-based anisotropy into TO is expected to produce a transformational shift in the current practices utilized in designing aircraft parts for metallic additive manufacturing. MRL's Topology Optimization for Additive Manufacturing (TOAM) will enable the integration of location-specific microstructure anisotropy in the design and manufacturing of air-platform structural components. The feasibility and practical implementation of the proposed effort will be demonstrated initially by the integration of TOAM into commercial finite element tools.