Automatic construction of structural CAD models from 3D topology optimization

Abstract

Impact of decisions in the design process is initially high and declines as the design matures. However, few computational tools are available for the early design phase, thus an opportunity exists to create such tools. New technology opens up new possibilities to create new and novel computational tools. In this work an existing application is adapted for a new novel 3D input device that is named the Leap Motion controller. The controller allows the user to interact with 3D objects on the screen by using fingers and hands. The of result of this work is a conceptual design application which enables very direct manipulation of 3D objects on the screen, which has not before been achieved for this type of application in 3D. An improved human-computer interaction can potentially improve the users understanding of the structural behavior of a model, cognitive engagement in the design task, and encourage further design exploration. Three different cases are implemented which aims to enable the user to explore different design options with emphasis on geometrical form, as this has the greatest potential to improve the structural performance. The case studies demonstrate new potential for building engineering intuition and improving design space exploration through very direct manipulation in 3D.

Optimization‐based three‐dimensional strut‐and‐tie model generation for reinforced concrete

“…For a review of 2D TO extraction techniques, the reader is referred to our previous paper (Xia et al., 2020a). For 3D TO results, CAD‐friendly models were extracted from TO results in Cuillière, François, and Nana (2018) and Yin, Xiao, and Cirak (2019). None of these methods is dedicated to, or suited for, obtaining STM models.…”

Euclidian Distance Transformation, Main Axis Rotation and Noisy Dilitation Supported Cross-Section Classification With Convolutional Neural Networks

“…The authors of (Stangl and Wartzack, 2015) manually define elliptical and spherical crosssections in topology optimization. In contrast to the manual selection, the authors of (Cuillière et al, 2018;Mayer and Wartzack, 2020;Nana et al, 2017;Yin et al, 2020) automatically use shape properties such as the radius of circular cross-sections (Cuillière et al, 2018;Nana et al, 2017) or the local radius (Mayer and Wartzack, 2020). The authors of (Lidayová et al, 2016) determine the crosssection of vascular bloodlines to remove nodes of a skeleton that does not suit the anatomy.…”

Design of effective fins for fast PCM melting and solidification in shell-and-tube latent heat thermal energy storage through topology optimization

“…Care should be taken to ensure that the volume inequality constraint is still satisfied after this operation. The iso-surface of the clipped part can then be triangulated in a meshing software to obtain a STereoLithography (STL) file for direct manufacturing [66] or further derived into a Computer Aided-Design (CAD) model [67]. Through this strategy, we import CAD representations of the optimized designs into COMSOL Multyphics [57] and analyze the performance using high-resolution body-fitted meshes.…”