Το work with title Efficient design and optimization of structures with variable density lattices additively manufactured: A pilot study by Liliopoulos Vasileios is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Bibliographic Citation
Vasileios G. Liliopoulos, "Efficient design and optimization of structures with variable density lattices additively manufactured: A pilot study", Diploma Work, School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2025
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.104798
Additive manufacturing, combined with advances in material science, enables the production of structures with complex geometry and topology, which are practically impossible to produce with conventional manufacturing technologies. Among these are lattice structures, a class of cellular structures with a broad spectrum of applications that span and are exploited across various sectors and industries. These structures provide an additional tool in product design optimization, seeking to reduce weight and material usage while maintaining the desirable mechanical properties of a structure, such as high strength.In this work, a structural optimization process that integrates lattice structures with a topologically optimized base design was presented. This method uses the SIMP (Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization) topology optimization technique to determine the optimal material distribution in the design space and design a variable density lattice within the target geometry of the structure, fully leveraging the intermediate densities obtained from the topology optimization. In this way, the local density result is translated into corresponding local thickness of the structural elements, based on the user-selected lattice type. The implementation and evaluation of this methodology are carried out using an adjustable wrench and nTop design and analysis software. This study comprises static finite element analysis, topology optimization with and without overhang manufacturing constraints, a performance comparison between the optimized designs and the initial solid structure, and preparation for additive manufacturing. The resulting optimized design is then suitable for 3D printing, experimental testing and validation.