For more than half a century, the (trimmed NURBs) surface representation has been the B-rep of choice for the GM industry. Fundamentally, B-rep GM has evolved little during this period. Herein, we present a, B-spline based, volumetric representation (V-rep) that successfully confronts existing and anticipated design, analysis, and manufacturing foreseen challenges. Among others, full support of AM of porous (lattice) and/or heterogeneous artifacts is offered, as well as direct compatibility with the B-rep contemporary representation as well as iso-geometric analysis (IGA).
Examples and applications of V-rep GM, that span design, analysis and optimization, and AM, of (heterogeneous) lattice- and micro-structures, including compliant functional lattice mechanisms, will be demonstrated.
Keywords: Trivariate splines, Functionally graded materials, Micro-structures
Work in collaboration with many others, including Ben Ezair, Fady Massarwi, Boris van Sosin, Jinesh Machchhar, Q Youn Hong, Sumita Dahiya, Annalisa Buffa, Giancarlo Sangalli, Pablo Antolin, Massimiliano Martinelli, Bob Haimes, and Stefanie Elgeti.
Speaker: Gershon Elber, Professor, Computer Science, Technion, IIT