Solutions of partial differential equations for modeling and development
of solid structures
Abstract
Recently, solutions of partial differential equations (PDEs) are under
investigation as an effective tool for geometric modeling and shape
generation to develop smooth-edge structures. Three-dimensional shape
modeling needs the completeness of geometric queries in a design and
optimization processes. In this paper, a novel modeling technique using
solutions of six-order partial differential equations (PDEs) has been
developed to model a 3D shape with a set of boundary conditions. The
advantages of using solutions of PDEs for geometry generation over other
techniques are PDEs-based solid modeling needs smaller number of
parameters and can automatically guarantee some intrinsic smoothness
which is not easily achieved in spline-based blending and other
conventional techniques. Based on the developed solutions of PDEs, the
optimal cell sizes of Body-Centered Cubic (BCC) and Face-Centered Cubic
(FCC) lattice structures have been generated which shows smooth
structures compared to other conventional techniques. The developed
lattice structures have been optimized using fmincon and genetic
algorithms. The optimized BCC unit cell width and strut radius are
determined to be 0.01 m and 0.0013 m respectively. For the FCC lattice
structure, a 0.001 m strut radius and 0.0099 m unit cell width were
determined. Finally, these optimal dimensions were used to generate the
solid structures and the stresses were evaluated using analytical and
ANSYS simulations. The stresses evaluation results indicate that when
the aspect ratio becomes 1 the uniform values were obtained.