Multi-Material Topology Optimization of Structures Infilled with Conformal Metamaterials

Microstructures and metamaterials are often used as building units of more complicated structures. At the last part of this work, we consider a multi-material topology optimization using orthotropic metamaterials. Unlike isotropic materials, orthotropic materials show an additional challenge, since their orientation has to be taken into account. After topology optimization, the microstructures of the metamaterials are mapped to the resulted irregular domains for each material phase, acting as infill. Different from existing work, we propose an alternative way of mapping the metamaterial microstructures to irregular domains by employing the conformal mapping theory. Each group of metamaterials is bounded by a thin layer of material to guarantee structural connectivity between different microstructures and smooth external boundaries.

Flowchart

Representative publication:

Panagiotis Vogiatzis, Shikui Chen, Xianfeng David Gu, Ching-Hung Chuang, Hongyi Xu, and Na Lei, “Multi-Material Topology Optimization of Structures Infilled with Conformal Metamaterials”, ASME Proceedings of IDETC/CIE, August 26-29, 2018, Quebec City, Canada.

Target design and corresponding microstructures

Orientation of orthotropic metamaterials

Microstructure mapping in groups