Computer-Aided Design-Based Topology Optimization System With Dynamic Feature Shape and Modeling History Evolution

Abstract

Conventional topology optimization presentations generally highlight the numerical and optimization details established on the specially customized discrete geometric modeling system, which is incompatible with the existing computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided engineering (CAE) systems. Therefore, tedious preprocessing and postprocessing are required to improve the editability and manufacturability, which are both time consuming and labor intensive. Hence, to address this challenging issue, a novel CAD-based topology optimization system is developed in this work. The following points are highlighted: (i) interoperability issue between CAD and topology optimization was addressed by using macro files to communicate the feature and modeling history information; then, (ii) structural shape and topology optimization is performed based on a B-spline-based approach, which inherits the original spline information from the upstream CAD model and of course, can return spline-based geometric information for optimized CAD model generation, and the last but the most important point to mention is that, (iii) modeling history was incorporated into the optimization process and dynamic modeling history change is enabled based on the optimality criteria. This final point is significant because history-based CAD modeling is still a main-stream approach, especially given the excellent postmodeling editability and design intent capture.