Abstract Additive manufacturing offers new design opportunities for composite sandwich structures. The work presented herein builds on the concepts of the coating approach for topology optimization of shell-infill structures by using density gradients to determine local material orientations. A generalized material property interpolation scheme is presented and the sensitivity analysis for the minimum compliance optimization problem is developed. The approach is demonstrated for an orthotropic shell using the Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm benchmark problem and results approach the isotropic solution when an equivalent in-plane modulus is considered. To adapt the approach to composite sandwich structures, a methodology based on the addition of a contour finding step is presented to define separate properties in the exterior shell from interior shells. The work introduces a new approach in topology optimization to tackle composite fibre reinforced sandwich structures that would benefit from a complex core structure obtained by additive manufacturing.

中文翻译：

---

用于复合夹层结构拓扑优化的涂层方法的扩展

摘要 增材制造为复合夹层结构提供了新的设计机会。本文介绍的工作建立在涂层方法的概念之上，通过使用密度梯度来确定局部材料方向，从而对壳填充结构进行拓扑优化。提出了一种广义的材料特性插值方案，并对最小柔度优化问题进行了敏感性分析。使用 Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm 基准问题对正交各向异性壳演示了该方法，并且当考虑等效面内模量时，结果接近各向同性解。为了使该方法适用于复合夹层结构，提出了一种基于添加轮廓查找步骤的方法来定义外壳与内壳的不同属性。