Creation of lattice structures with skeleton model for additive manufacturing

The aim of this paper is to propose an effective method to create and store data of lattice structure CAD models. The currently used computer-aided design (CAD) tools are unsuitable for creating lattice structures because of the large number of facets in the lattice structure CAD models. Therefore, a new solution is required to overcome this problem. In this study a new skeleton model to create and store lattice structures is proposed. The skeleton model consists of the basic elements used to describe a lattice structure model: points, lines, joints, and sections. The configurations necessary to describe the lattice structures and the newly developed algorithm for the skeleton model generation of these configurations are described. To illustrate its application, a case study to create conformal and non-conformal lattice structures by using the newly developed skeleton model was presented. Unlike current techniques, this proposed method does not need to create boundary representations of the lattice structure CAD models and enables the computer to represent and store lattice structure model data more efficiently. The findings of this research have wide applicability in the development of CAD software and file formats tailored for additive manufacturing.