Search for: All records

The gap between research in academia and industry is narrowing as collaboration between the two becomes critical. Topology optimization has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint by minimizing material usage within the design space based on given loading conditions. While being a useful tool in the design phase of the engineering process, its complexity has hindered its progression and integration in actual design. As a result, the advantages of topology optimization have yet to be implemented into common engineering practice. To facilitate the implementation and promote the usage of topology optimization, San Francisco State University and the University of South Carolina collaborated with ARUP, a world leader in structural designs, to develop an Automated Topology Optimization Platform (ATOP) to synchronize commonly used industry software programs and provide a user-friendly and automated solution to perform topology optimization. ATOP allows for users to form a conceptual understanding of a structure’s ideal shape and design in terms of ideal material placement by iterating various parameters such as volume fraction, and minimum and maximum member size at the start of a project. With the developed platform, a high-rise building design from the literature was first adopted to validate the results from ATOP, after which an actual design project from ARUP was utilized to fully explore its functionality and versatility. Results show that ATOP has the potential to create aesthetic and structurally sound designs through an automated and intelligent process. 

The gap between research in academia and industry is narrowing as collaboration between the two becomes critical. Topology optimization has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint by minimizing material usage within the design space based on given loading conditions. While being a useful tool in the design phase of the engineering process, its complexity has hindered its progression and integration in actual design. As a result, the advantages of topology optimization have yet to be implemented into common engineering practice. To facilitate the implementation and promote the usage of topology optimization, San Francisco State University and the University of South Carolina collaborated with ARUP, a world leader in structural designs, to develop an Automated Topology Optimization Platform (ATOP) to synchronize commonly used industry software programs and provide a user-friendly and automated solution to perform topology optimization. ATOP allows for users to form a conceptual understanding of a structure’s ideal shape and design in terms of ideal material placement by iterating various parameters such as volume fraction, and minimum and maximum member size at the start of a project. With developed platform, a high-rise building design from the literature was first adopted to validate the results from ATOP, after which an actual design project from ARUP was utilized to fully explore its functionality and versatility. Results show that ATOP has the potential to create aesthetic and structurally sound designs through an automated and intelligent process.