Optimal Design of Lightweight and High-Performance Structures for Future Fuel-Efficient Army and Commercial Ground Vehicles

The objective of the proposed research is to develop an advanced methodology for designing and manufacturing lightweight and high-performance structures for future fuel-efficient Army and commercial ground vehicles. Emerging engineered materials will beconsidered as key applications of the approach to be developed. These new materials include lattice block materials (LBM), grating materials, sandwich structures with metallic foams, and functionally gradient materials (FGM). The technique can be alsoextended to the design of materials based on nano-scale mechanics. The proposed new methodology, referred to as function-oriented material design (FOMD), is based on the topology optimization method developed at the University of Michigan since 1988 andknown throughout the world as the