Computational Design of Lightweight Trusses

Trusses are load-carrying light-weight structures consisting of bars connected at joints ubiquitously applied in a variety engineering scenarios. Designing optimal trusses that satisfy functional specifications with minimal amount material has interested both theoreticians and practitioners for more than century. In this paper, we introduce two main ideas to improve upon the state art. First, formulate an alternating linear programming problem geometry optimization. Second, sets complementary topological operations, including novel subdivision scheme global topology refinement inspired by Michell’s famed theoretical study. Based on these ideas, build efficient computational framework design lightweight trusses. We show our method achieves smaller volumes is faster compared recent state-of-the-art approaches.