Automatic design of porous shell structure based on finite element mesh

In recent years, the applications of 3D printing have been extended from conventional rapid prototyping to direct fabrication of functional parts. The advantage of 3D printing, in its design flexibility and complexity, has driven modern design methods that can overcome traditional manufacturing constraints, and it has been applied to designs of lightweight structures or functional products. In this study, an automatic design of porous shell structures was developed for weight reduction and better ventilation of 3D printed parts. A numerical algorithm was developed to generate porous shell structures based on finite element mesh. The effects of mesh size and hole diameter were investigated in terms of the quality of the porous structures, and an algorithm to determine hole diameter was proposed to generate holes adaptively according to the target geometry and the relevant mesh density. As a result, surface density could be reduced lower than 60% without hole interference.