Topology Optimization Design of Self-Supporting Structure for Additive Manufacturing
It is an effective way to achieve structural innovation design by combining topology optimization and additive manufac-turing(AM)technology.However,a main deficiency in the AM processing is that additional support structures are required,which will inevitably lead to waste of printing material and inefficient processing.It a simple and efficient self-supporting topol-ogy optimization method for additive manufacturing is proposed based on the Floating Projection Topology Optimization(FPTO).A wedge-shaped supporting area with adjustable angle is adopted to judge whether the element of interest is sufficiently supported.Through relaxing the overhang angle constraint progressively and deleting the unsupported elements gradually,the to-pology optimization design of self-supporting with arbitrary overhang angle is achieved.Numerical examples and 3D printed samples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed topology optimization method,which improves the manufacturability of the topology optimization results.