Topology Optimization of Fluidic Pressure-Driven Multi-Material Compliant Mechanisms

Compliant mechanisms actuated by pneumatic loads are receiving increasing attention due to their direct applicability as soft robots that perform tasks using their flexible bodies. Using multiple materials to build them can further improve their performance and efficiency. Due to developments in additive manufacturing, the fabrication of...

Topology optimization of geometrically nonlinear structures using reduced-order modeling

High computational costs are encountered in topology optimization problems of geometrically nonlinear structures since intensive use has to be made of incremental-iterative finite element simulations. To alleviate this computational intensity, reduced-order models (ROMs) are explored in this paper. The proposed method targets ROM bases...

Topology optimization of compliant mechanisms with multiple degrees of freedom

High-tech equipment critically relies on the precise and reliable fine alignment of components such as mirrors and lenses for calibration and adaptation of instrumentation. To meet the ever-increasing requirements on precision, engineers typically resort to monolithic compliant mechanisms. These mechanisms gain mobility by deformation of the...

A simple and versatile topology optimization formulation for flexure synthesis

High-tech equipment critically relies on flexures for precise manipulation and measurement. Through elastic deformation, flexures offer extreme position repeatability within a limited range of motion in their degrees of freedom, while constraining motion in the degrees of constraint. Topology optimization proves a prospective tool for the...

Approximate geometric non-linear analysis in topology optimization: A novel kind of structural analysis for topology optimization of finite range compliant mechanisms

Density-based topology optimization, when used to design structures that show geometrical non-linear behaviour, currently faces computational effort and stability issues. These issues are caused by the iterative method used in geometric non-linear structural analysis. On top of taking much computational effort to complete, this method encounters...

Topology optimization of fluidic pressure-loaded structures and compliant mechanisms using the Darcy method

In various applications, design problems involving structures and compliant mechanisms experience fluidic pressure loads. During topology optimization of such design problems, these loads adapt their direction and location with the evolution of the design, which poses various challenges. A new density-based topology optimization approach...

The Darcy method for Topology Optimisation of pressure actuated compliant mechanisms

This work introduces a new method to deal with design dependent pressure loads in Topology Optimisation (TO) using the SIMP material model. A pronounced focus is on optimising pressure actuated compliant mechanisms. The difficulty herein is the interpretation of the pressure boundary in a TO design. In TO the boundaries are blurry, because of...