Integrated design of porous materials and structures with scale-coupled effect

It is known that structural behaviors of cellularsolids are dictated by the topology of the dense and porous regions,with a complex arrangement of microstructures of different sizesand topologies. In this paper, an integrated design methodology usingRepresentative Volume Element(RVE) scale is proposed for the globalstiffness maximization of the overall structure and the local design ofRepresentative Volume Element based on multi-scale computing. Influences ofRepresentative Volume Element aspect ratio, scale, and periodic arrangementstyle such as translation, symmetric pattern on the optimal design areinvestigated using the super-element method. By means of the dualoptimization scheme and perimeter constraint, Representative Volume Elementsare efficiently optimized with checkerboards being eliminated. Numericalresults show that the proposed method can be used in the design ofporous materials such as honeycomb panels and hierarchical cellular sandwichpanels and the hierarchical cellular materials scale effects are wellrepresented. Thisprovides an innovative design concept for the lightweight structures.