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In powder-based additive manufacturing, the unused powder must be removed after printing. Topology optimization has been applied to designs for additive manufacturing, which may lead to designs with enclosed voids, where the powder will be trapped inside during printing. A topology optimization method incorporating a powder removal passageway is developed to avoid the powder being trapped inside the structure. The passageway is generated by connecting the entrance, all voids, and the exit sequentially. Each void is limited to have only one pair of inlet and outlet to guarantee a single-path flow to facilitate powder removal after the additive manufacturing. The path of the passageway is optimized to minimize its influence on structural stiffness. The proposed optimization method was applied to two practical case studies where the powder removal passageways were generated successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at incorporating all possible micro-scale damage mechanisms, namely, fiber failure, matrix cracking, fiber-matrix debonding and delamination in multi-fiber multi-layer representative volume element (M2RVE) subjected to multi-axial loading. Different loading conditions have been selected to induce a particular or combined damage mechanism/s to study the damage evolution. The predicted constitutive material responses for tensile and in-plane shear loading by M2RVE are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results. M2RVE then used for capturing all the microscale damage mechanisms even for complex multi-axial loading. The stress–strain responses have been effectively captured for different combinations of dominant damage mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of monotonic tensile experiments of thermo-induced shape memory polyurethane (TSMPU) at different loading rates were carried out to investigate the interaction between the internal heat production and the mechanical deformation. It is shown that the temperature variation on the surfaces of the specimens due to the internal heat production affects the mechanical properties of TSMPU remarkably. Then, based on irreversible thermodynamics, the Helmholtz free energy was decomposed into three parts, i.e., the instantaneous elastic free energy, visco-plastic free energy and heat free energy. The total deformation gradient was decomposed into the mechanical and thermal parts, and the mechanical deformation gradient was further divided into the elastic and visco-plastic components. The Hencky’s logarithmic strain was used in the current configuration. The heat equilibrium equation of internal heat production and heat exchange was derived in accordance with the first and second thermodynamics laws. The temperature of specimens was contributed by the internal heat production and the ambient temperature simultaneously, and a thermo-mechanically coupled thermo-elasto-visco-plastic model was established. The effect of temperature variation of specimens on the mechanical properties of the material was considered in this work. Finally, the capability of the proposed model was validated by comparing the simulated results with the corresponding experimental data of TSMPU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing processes, of which Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is one, provide an increased design freedom and the ability to build structures directly from CAD models. There is a growing interest in using optimization methods to design structures in place of manual designs. Three design optimization problems were addressed in this paper. The first related to axisymmetric structures and the other two addressing important design constraints when manufacturing using SLM. These solutions were developed and applied to a case study of a turbine containment ring. Firstly, many structural components such as a turbine containment ring are axisymmetric while they are subjected to a non-axisymmetric load. A solution was presented in this paper to generate optimized axisymmetric designs for a problem in which the mechanical model was not axisymmetric. The solution also worked equally well for generating a prismatic geometry with a uniform cross section, requiring no change in the procedure from axisymmetric designs to achieve this. Secondly, the SLM process experiences difficulties manufacturing structures with internal voids larger than a certain upper limit. A method was developed that allowed the designer to provide a value for this upper limit to the optimization method which would prevent the generation of internal voids larger than this value in any optimized design. The method calculated the sizes of all the voids and did not increase their size once they reached this limit. It was also aware of voids near each other, providing a minimum distance between them. Finally, in order to remove the metal powder, that fills the internal voids of structures built using SLM to reduce unnecessary weight, a method was developed to build paths to join the internal voids created during the optimization process. It allowed the analyst to nominate suitable path entrance locations from which powder could be removed, then found the shortest path connecting all voids and these locations. For axisymmetric structures it also distributed this path around the circumference to avoid generating weak points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates topology optimization of energy absorbing structures in which material damage is accounted for in the optimization process. The optimization objective is to design the lightest structures that are able to absorb the required mechanical energy. A structural continuity constraint check is introduced that is able to detect when no feasible load path remains in the finite element model, usually as a result of large scale fracture. This assures that designs do not fail when loaded under the conditions prescribed in the design requirements. This continuity constraint check is automated and requires no intervention from the analyst once the optimization process is initiated. Consequently, the optimization algorithm proceeds towards evolving an energy absorbing structure with the minimum structural mass that is not susceptible to global structural failure. A method is also introduced to determine when the optimization process should halt. The method identifies when the optimization method has plateaued and is no longer likely to provide improved designs if continued for further iterations. This provides the designer with a rational method to determine the necessary time to run the optimization and avoid wasting computational resources on unnecessary iterations. A case study is presented to demonstrate the use of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental study on the indentation hardness of NiTi shape memory alloys (SMAs) by using a spherical indenter tip and a finite element investigation to understand the experimental results are presented in this paper. It is shown that the spherical indentation hardness of NiTi SMAs increases with the indentation depth. The finding is contrary to the recent study on the hardness of NiTi SMAs using a sharp Berkovich indenter tip, where the interfacial energy plays a dominant role at small indentation depths. Our numerical investigation indicates that the influence of the interfacial energy is not significant on the spherical indentation hardness of SMAs. Furthermore, the depth dependency of SMA hardness under a spherical indenter is explained by the elastic spherical contact theory incorporating the deformation effect of phase transformation of SMAs. Hertz theory for purely elastic contact shows that the spherical hardness increases with the square root of the indentation depth. The phase transformation beneath the spherical tip weakens the depth effect of a purely elastic spherical hardness. This study enriches our knowledge on the basic concept of hardness for SMAs under spherical indentation at micro- and nanoscales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the crystallography theory of martensitic transformation and Hill-Rice’s internal variable constitutive theory, a generalized micromechanics constitutive model is established to describe the thermoelastic martensitic transformation and reorientation of single crystal. This model can describe the macroscopic constitutive behavior due to the microstructure changes of forward transformation, reverse transformation and reorientation in single crystal under complex thermodynamic loading condition. The theoretical predictions agree well with the available experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]