Manufacturing-oriented topological design of CFRC structures with variable fiber volume and orientation. (15th April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yan, Xiaolei; Lai, Minchao; Huang, Dengfeng; Zhang, Yong; Huang, Xiaodong
• Is Part Of: Composite structures. Volume 310(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-04-15
• Subjects: Continuous fiber reinforced composite -- Variable stiffness composite -- Topology optimization -- Additive manufacturing -- Stream function; Composite construction -- Periodicals; Composites -- Périodiques; 624.18
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compstruct.2023.116779
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-8223

Abstract

Highlights: A new manufacturing-oriented topology optimization method for the design of continuous fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) structures is proposed. The performance of the optimized CFRC structures has been significantly improved by optimizing the structural topology, fiber content and fiber orientation simultaneously. All fibers are continuously placed along the path of load transfer without any crossing and overlap for easy fabrication. More fibers are optimally allocated at the location with high stress to maximize resource efficiency. Abstract: Allowing freely steering fiber orientation, curvilinear fiber reinforced composite has much better load-bearing capacities than conventional straight-fiber composites. However, the uneven distribution of the fiber and the manufacturability are often ignored while designing variable stiffness composite structures. In this paper, a manufacturing-oriented topology optimization method is proposed for designing continuous fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) structures, in which the fiber content as well as the fiber orientation are concurrently optimized with topology variables. The smooth design with explicit boundary is achieved by the floating projection topology optimization (FPTO) method, in which the implicit floating projection constraint is employed to simulate 0/1 constraints of topology design variables. In order to improve the manufacturability of the design, the fiber placement path fitting method based on the potential flow theory is proposed and embedded in the optimization procedure. By analogy with the streamlines, the fiber path would be placed continuously without any crossing and overlap, meanwhile the fiber content could be adjusted optimally according to the stress distribution. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.