A graded lattice structure design method based on mapping process

A lattice structure has broad application prospects in aviation and aerospace due to its high specific strength and stiffness. A graded lattice structure may have better mechanical performance than uniform lattice structure. Therefore, a graded lattice structure design method based on density and stress mapping was proposed in this work. The topology optimization method was utilized to obtain the element relative density and stress values, which were used to determine the strut thickness based on an established mapping function between the values and the strut thickness. The inverse distance weighting method was used to filter the relative density and stress to distribute more material on the force path, and the strut minimum dimension control method was proposed under the condition that the structure mass remains unchanged. The design of lattice structure with different volumes are based on the only once topology optimization results, which can significantly improve the design efficiency. The proposed method can be used for structures with complex geometry because the unit cells are established based on the finite elements. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method were verified by a case study, which proves that the proposed method can be extended to the lightweight design of related structures. © 2020, Editorial Office of Journal of Vibration and Shock. All right reserved.