A two-scale system-based integrated design of topology and material

Topology design and material design, which separately focus on macro-level and micro-level, are viewed as two sub-problems of part design. Whereas none sub-problem is isolated, therefore it is necessary to resolve couplings between the sub-problems to get trade-off satisfactory system-wide solutions. The two-scale system-based integrated design method of topology and material proposed in this paper is a system method which aims to intersect the response of each sub-problem to identify mutually satisfactory system-wide solutions. A surrogate model is used to simulate the relationship between properties obtained from sub-problems and product performance, which makes it easy to couple the sub-problem response to the original design problem so as to reduce the computation and time consuming. The primary mathematical construct is supported by compromise Decision Support Problem (cDSP). A robust exploration of the solution space using ternary plots is utilized to identify solution regions that satisfy conflicting goals from seven design scenarios. A numerical example of automotive control arm is used to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed method.