A lightweight methodology of 3D printed objects utilizing multi-scale porous structures

Abstract

Lightweight modeling is one of the most important research subjects in modern fabrication manufacturing, and it provides not only a low-cost solution but also functional applications, especially for the fabrication using 3D printing. This approach presents a multi-scale porous structure-based lightweight framework to reduce the weight of 3D printed objects while meeting the specified requirements. Specifically, the triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) is exploited to design a multi-scale porous structure, which can achieve high mechanical behaviors with lightweight. The multi-scale porous structure is constructed using compactly supported radial basis functions, and it inherits the good properties of TPMS, such as smoothness, full connectivity (no closed hollows) and quasi-self-supporting (free of extra supports in most cases). Then, the lightweight problem utilizing the porous structures is formulated into a constrained optimization. Finally, a strength-to-weight optimization method is proposed to obtain the lightweight models. It is also worth noting that the proposed porous structures can be perfectly fabricated by common 3D printing technologies on account of the leftover material, such as the liquid in SLA, which can be removed through the fully connected void channel.