A novel optimization design method of additive manufacturing oriented porous structures and experimental validation

Highlights: • An optimization design method of additive manufacturing oriented porous structures is proposed. • The method integrated optimizes the pore unit relative density and the void layout. • The resulting porous structures satisfy the minimal feature size and support-free constraints. • Manufacturing process validates the support-free property of designed specimen. • Experimentally, the stiffness of an optimized structure was 31.2% higher than that of one designed via the comparison method. -- Abstract: The development and application of inhomogeneous porous structures have greatly benefitted from the emergence of additive manufacturing (AM) techniques. At the same time, the inherent constraints of AM techniques have highlighted the importance of design for AM. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to optimize the design of AM oriented porous structures and improve their structural performance. In particular, this method optimizes porous structures using embedded voids and incorporates two novel filters, one of which satisfies the minimum feature size constraint while the other facilitates a support-free manufacturing process. The performance of the method was validated via numerical analyses and experiments, the results of which confirmed the excellent stiffness properties and adaptability to the AM constraints of the designed porous structure.