Patent Document ID: 8880380
Application ID: 12340192
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method of designing a structure representing a physical object, comprising: (a) segmenting an initial design of the structure into a plurality of cells; (b) computing a field state of the plurality of cells in the structure based on a finite element analysis; (c) performing cellular automata computation by: (c1) reducing a total mass or a target fractional mass of the structure required to satisfy a maximum reaction force at a cell according to an amount determined by an error e FC defined by following equation: e FC = ∫ d i d f ⁢ ( F r ⁡ ( d ) - F r * ⁡ ( d ) F r * ⁡ ( d ) ⁢ ⁢ ⅆ d where F r (d) represents an actual force-displacement of the structure, F r * (d) represents a target set of forces applied to the structure, d represents a displacement of the structure, d i represents an initial displacement of the structure and d f represents a final displacement of the structure, and (c2) updating the design variable based on the total mass or the target fractional mass and a material distribution update rule to generate an updated design of the structure, the material distribution update rule changing the design variable of each cell to converge the field state of each cell towards a target field state of each cell; (d) repeating steps (b) and (c) responsive to the updated design not satisfying a terminating condition; and (e) outputting the updated design of the structure responsive to the updated design satisfying the terminating condition.