Large-Scale Three-Dimensional Anisotropic Topology Optimization of Variable-Axial Lightweight Composite Structures

Variable-axial fiber-reinforced composites allow for local customization of fiber orientation and thicknesses. Despite their significant potential for performance improvement over the conventional multiaxial composites and metals, they pose challenges in design optimization due to the vastly increased design freedom in material orientations. This paper presents an anisotropic topology optimization method for designing large-scale, 3D variable-axial lightweight composite structures subject to multiple load cases. The computational challenges associated with large-scale 3D anisotropic topology optimization with extremely low volume fraction are addressed by a tensor-based representation of 3D orientation that would avoid the 2π periodicity of angular representations such as Euler angles, and an adaptive meshing scheme, which, in conjunction with PDE regularization of the density variables, refines the mesh where structural members appear and coarsens where there is void. The proposed method is applied to designing a heavy-duty drone frame subject to complex multi-loading conditions. Finally, the manufacturability gaps between the optimized design and the fabrication-ready design for tailored fiber placement (TFP) is discussed, which motivates future work toward a fully automated design synthesis.