Design and Optimization of 3D Skeletal Composite Structures

Design and Optimization of 3D Skeletal Composite Structures

Papenhuijzen, W.M.

Kassapoglou, C. (mentor)

Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Structures and Materials

2017-04-26

A method has been developed for designing composite 3D skeletal structures. This method can be used to design weight optimized fiber reinforced structures that can carry complex loads in high performance applications such as satellites. These designs are realized through Size, Shape and Topology Optimization, using a ground structure approach as a starting point. This enables modeling of both the highly anisotropic properties of fiber reinforced materials, as well as arrangements in various stages of development that exploit those properties. Rather than applying these three optimization processes purely sequentially, a more robust approach is presented which increases the likelihood of arriving at design solutions that are global optima. A trade-off between theoretical optimality and manufacturability is made by implementing manufacturing constraints. This is done at various stages in the optimization process, rather than as a final translation step where a theoretically optimal solution is converted to a realistic design. Merely implementing manufacturing constraints as a final design step may lead to a design which moves away significantly from the optimal design that was arrived upon at an earlier stage. Manufacturing feasibility has been addressed by analyzing and building several samples showcasing a joint design that forms the building block for the type of structures that can be designed using the methodology presented in this thesis. The results indicate that, especially for stiffness-critical applications, this is a feasible approach for building structures that can be significantly lighter than state of art additive manufactured structures, while approaching similar levels of design freedom.

Composites
Fiber Reinforced Materials
Design Optimization
Grid Stiffened Structures
Manufacturing Constraints

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f372d843-e723-4eef-9c03-d039b98b91af

2022-04-26

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2017 Papenhuijzen, W.M.