Adaptive Voronoi Minimal Surface Structures for Additive Manufacturing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional additive manufacturing processes using triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) suffer from high symmetry, leading to preferred directions that reduce the overall response to physical requirements like stress or strain, and poor adaptability to bounding geometry or specific boundary conditions.
Innovation Solution
A method involving the generation of an adaptive Voronoi tessellation and dual skeleton graphs to create a digital minimal surface model, allowing for a structurally adapted minimal surface structure that accounts for local physical parameter requirements, such as stress and strain, by using a density field to generate a Voronoi tessellation and intertwining skeleton graphs without intersections.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If conventional periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) are used, then the structure has high symmetry and uniform distribution, but this leads to preferred directions that reduce the overall response to physical requirements such as stress or strain
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies asymmetry by transitioning from highly symmetric periodic TPMS structures to adaptive Voronoi-based minimal surfaces that lack translational symmetry. The Voronoi tessellation generates structures with varying cell sizes and shapes that adapt to local density field requirements, eliminating preferred directions while maintaining structural uniformity through the Voronoi construction process itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by using a density field to guide the Voronoi tessellation process, allowing different regions of the structure to have different local characteristics. The density field assigns different weights to different spatial locations, resulting in minimal surface structures with locally optimized properties that respond appropriately to position-dependent physical requirements such as stress and strain distributions.
2Shape
If conventional periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) are used, then the structure has regular geometry, but this exhibits poor ability to adapt to bounding geometry or requirements like specific boundary conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-defining a density field that encodes the desired adaptability to bounding geometry and boundary conditions before generating the minimal surface structure. The density field is calculated based on the specific geometric constraints and physical requirements of the application, and this pre-computed field guides the subsequent Voronoi tessellation to automatically produce a structure adapted to those constraints.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements parameter changes by using the density field as a spatially varying parameter that controls the Voronoi tessellation process. The density values at different locations serve as parameters that adjust the local structure characteristics, enabling the minimal surface to adapt its geometry to bounding surfaces and boundary conditions while maintaining the overall minimal surface property.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of additively manufacturing a minimal surface structure of a three-dimensional article includes a computer executing the steps of recording, in the computer, an envelope of the three-dimensional article; generating a density field across a volume enclosed by the envelope with densities of the density field corresponding to local requirement values of at least one physical parameter at respective positions of the three-dimensional article; generating an adaptive Voronoi tessellation of the volume using the density field; generating a first skeleton graph associated with the adaptive Voronoi tessellation; generating a second skeleton graph associated with the first skeleton graph; and generating a digital minimal surface model from the first and second skeleton graphs. The method may further include a 3D printer additively manufacturing the minimal surface structure according to the digital minimal surface model.