2.2. Topology optimization
Topology optimization aims to find the optimal solid-void
material distribution within a design domain for structure perfor-
mance optimization. Various approaches have been proposed to
solve this problem including the homogenization-based approach,
SIMP, level set, ESO; see Ref. [38] for a recent review. Basically, the
approaches iteratively update the design’s geometry after simulat-
ing its physical behavior until convergence, and are computation-
ally very expensive.
These topology optimization approaches were initially studied
at the single macroscale [38]. Later on, approaches to design an
optimal RVE were proposed, without considering the macrostruc-
ture. The concurrent topology optimization approaches were also
proposed to simultaneously optimize the macroscale and micro-
scale topology [39] and are much more expensive to compute.
Zhang et al. proposed an approach to design the porous structure
of variable density for compliance minimization with a regular
hex-mesh configuration and is very related to the work proposed
here [40]. In this work [40], the microstructure and material prop-
erties were first built using the homogenization theory. Then, the
conventional topology optimization approach was used to gener-
ate the cell density distribution, which was then mapped to cell
structural parameters (circle/sphere radius here, for example).
However, the previous work only studied the problem of compli-
ance minimization, whereas the desired behavior is studied here.
Moreover, owing to the introduction of various numerical tech-
niques, the porous structure optimization is efficiently resolved.
2.3. Performance-oriented structure optimization
The design of the optimal topology of a structure, particularly
for additive manufacturing, has also attracted much interest in
geometric computing and computer graphics. Wang et al. opti-
mized skin-frame structures with the interior of model via updat-
ing the radii and numbers of struts of an initial frame [41].A
honeycomb-like Voronoi structures was introduced by Lu et al.
[42] by adaptively updating the centroidal Voronoi diagram and
its interior holes from an initially constructed Voronoi cells. These
approaches initiated the studies on interior design in the graphics
community, but do not fully address the optimization process, and
the aspect of computational cost. Recently, Panetta et al. [43] and
Schumacher et al. [44] also proposed excellent approaches for
microstructure design for elastic performance control. They basi-
cally constructed a library of microstructures by topology opti-
mization or geometric approaches, and then properly placed
these structures with each prescribed hexahedron cell according
to the design requirements or users’ prescriptions. However,
improper connection between the adjacent cells may appear, and
the computations are also expensive.
Model reduction is a commonly used technique in mechanical
engineering or geometric computing [28,45]. Xu et al. [28] demon-
strated an interactive method to design the Young’s modulus dis-
tribution of a material, and Li [45] proposed an approach for
elastic animation editing with space-time constraints based on
rotation-strain (RS) coordinates. In these approaches, model reduc-
tion was performed in the physical space, and the problem of por-
ous structure construction was not studied.
3. Problem statement and approach overview
A linear elasticity problem was studied here: Design a semireg-
ular porous structure so that the displacements of some of its
points are close to certain values, under prescribed external forces.
See also Fig. 2. In the following, the basics of the problem are first
explained. Then, the problem of semiregular porous structure
design is mathematically defined, followed by the approach
overview.
3.1. Semiregular structure and linear elasticity
3.1.1. Semiregular structure
A regular porous structure is a set of completely identical con-
nected porous cells arranged under a specified order, as illustrated
in Fig. 1(a).
A stochastic porous structure is a set of connected porous cells
arranged randomly without any order, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b).
A semiregular porous structure is a set of connected porous cells
of similar geometries arranged under a specified order, as illus-
trated in Fig. 1(c).
3.1.2. Notations about the design domain
X
is the solid domain under study (as in Fig. 4(a));
C
0
is the fixed boundary of
X
;
C
N
is the boundary of
X
exerted by external forces
s
;
C
D
is the boundary of
X
when the displacements are set as the
design target u
D
;
X
M
is the quadrilateral mesh associated to
X
(as in Fig. 4(c));
e ¼fe
i
; 1 6 i 6 ng is the quad mesh set; e
i
2 e for the i-th mesh
element; e 2 e for a general mesh element;
r ¼fr
min
6 r
i
6 r
max
; 1 6 i 6 ng is the radius distribution over
model
X
M
;
X
M;r
is the semiregular porous structure obtained by digging a
hole within the i-th element e
i
of radius r
i
2 r (as in Fig. 4(e));
X
M;
q
is a density model of prescribed density distributions
q
(as
in Fig. 4(g));
f
q
k
g
N
k¼0
are the density bases after the model reduction, for the
number of bases N.
3.1.3. Linear elasticity
Following the principle of linear elasticity studied here, the
deformation of
X
can then be stated as follows: Find the displace-
ment field u satisfying the following equations including a PDE
(partial differentiable equation).
div
r
ðuÞ¼f; on X;
r
ðuÞn ¼
s
; on
C
N
;
u ¼ 0; on
C
0
;
u ¼ u
D
; on
C
D
;
8
>
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
>
:
ð1Þ
where divðÞ is the divergence of a vector, f is the body force vector
defined on mesh vertices,
s is the exerted external force on the
boundary
C
N
of outer normal direction n; u
D
is the preset displace-
ment field on boundary
C
D
and r is the stress tensor defined follow-
ing the generalized Hooke’s Law:
Fig. 2. A simple illustration of the design problem input and output.
286 C. Xu et al. / Computers and Structures 182 (2017) 284–295