Research Article

Backbone cup – a structure design competition based on topology optimization and 3D printing

Engineering Simulation and Aerospace Computing (ESAC), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, P.R. China

^* e-mail: JH.Zhu_FEA@nwpu.edu.cn

Received: 12 January 2016
Accepted: 17 January 2016

Abstract

This paper addresses a structure design competition based on topology optimization and 3D Printing, and proposes an experimental approach to efficiently and quickly measure the mechanical performance of the structures designed using topology optimization. Since the topology optimized structure designs are prone to be geometrically complex, it is extremely inconvenient to fabricate these designs with traditional machining. In this study, we not only fabricated the topology optimized structure designs using one kind of 3D Printing technology known as stereolithography (SLA), but also tested the mechanical performance of the produced prototype parts. The finite element method is used to analyze the structure responses, and the consistent results of the numerical simulations and structure experiments prove the validity of this new structure testing approach. This new approach will not only provide a rapid access to topology optimized structure designs verifying, but also cut the turnaround time of structure design significantly.