Baldwin Martha, Meisel Nicholas A, McComb Christopher
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
School of Engineering Design and Innovation, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
3D Print Addit Manuf. 2024 Aug 20;11(4):e1555-e1566. doi: 10.1089/3dp.2023.0008. eCollection 2024 Aug.
Additive manufacturing is advantageous for producing lightweight components while addressing complex design requirements. This capability has been bolstered by the introduction of unit lattice cells and the gradation of those cells. In cases where loading varies throughout a part, it may be beneficial to use multiple, distinct lattice cell types, resulting in multi-lattice structures. In such structures, abrupt transitions between unit cell topologies may cause stress concentrations, making the boundary between unit cell types a primary failure point. Thus, these regions require careful design to ensure the overall functionality of the part. Although computational design approaches have been proposed, smooth transition regions are still difficult to achieve, especially between lattices of drastically different topologies. This work demonstrates and assesses a method for using variational autoencoders to automate the creation of transitional lattice cells, examining the factors that contribute to smooth transitions. Through computational experimentation, it was found that the smoothness of transition regions was strongly predicted by how closely the endpoints were in the latent space, whereas the number of transition intervals was not a sole predictor.
增材制造在满足复杂设计要求的同时，对于生产轻量化部件具有优势。单元晶格结构的引入及其渐变特性进一步增强了这一能力。在部件各处载荷不同的情况下，使用多种不同的晶格结构类型（从而形成多晶格结构）可能是有益的。在这种结构中，单元晶格拓扑之间的突然转变可能会导致应力集中，使得单元晶格类型之间的边界成为主要失效点。因此，这些区域需要精心设计以确保部件的整体功能。尽管已经提出了计算设计方法，但平滑过渡区域仍然难以实现，尤其是在拓扑结构差异极大的晶格之间。这项工作展示并评估了一种使用变分自编码器自动创建过渡晶格单元的方法，并研究了有助于实现平滑过渡的因素。通过计算实验发现，过渡区域的平滑程度很大程度上取决于端点在潜在空间中的接近程度，而过渡区间的数量并非唯一的预测因素。
