Applications of Topology Optimization Designs to Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

Recently composite materials reinforced with fibers such as carbon and glass fibers have been more and more used for light-weight structural components in various industrial fields such as aerospace, automobile and so forth. Although there are several sophisticated and practical processing techniques for manufacturing fiber reinforced composite materials, promise and possibility of additive manufacturing of those materials like CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastics) are indispensable because such newcomers of material and structural processing obviously allow design methodologies widen beyond their conventional design and optimization approaches. Topology optimization designs are very attractive for additive manufacturing product designs. However, this well-proofed method still seems not to be perfect in case that one tries to apply it to fiber reinforced composite materials design, in which one should take into consideration their orthotropic and graded material and physical properties. In this preliminary report, the present author tries to raise awareness of this issue and also attempts to formulate an extension or a generalization of the existing density-based topology optimization scheme, that is, SIMP (Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization) method.