Browsing by Subject "3D compliant actuators"

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    Design Automation for Multi-Material Printing
    (University of Texas at Austin, 2009-09-18) Hiller, Jonathan D.; Lipson, Hod
    The advent of multi-material freeform fabrication technologies has exponentially increased the mechanical design space available to engineers. The feature-based paradigm of traditional CAD software is insufficient to take advantage of the freedom of internal material distribution and gradients. Here we present a flexible evolutionary design algorithm for 3D multi-material structures that fully utilizes this expanded design space. The material distribution is optimized subject to high level functional constraints, or simple constraints such as maximizing stiffness per weight. The algorithm is inherently capable of shape optimization, or can simply optimize material distribution within a given geometry. We demonstrate autonomous design of freeform shapes, 3D non-uniform structures, and 3D compliant actuators.