Fluidic Topology Optimization with an Anisotropic Mixture Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel topology optimization method for fluidic device design in Stokes flow, utilizing an anisotropic mixture model to accurately handle boundary conditions and enable complex structure synthesis.

Contribution

The paper presents an anisotropic, differentiable mixture model that unifies phase and boundary condition representation, advancing fluidic device topology optimization capabilities.

Findings

Successfully designed fluidic systems with over four million parameters.

Demonstrated accurate boundary condition handling in complex fluidic structures.

Achieved high-performance fluidic device designs through the proposed method.

Abstract

Fluidic devices are crucial components in many industrial applications involving fluid mechanics. Computational design of a high-performance fluidic system faces multifaceted challenges regarding its geometric representation and physical accuracy. We present a novel topology optimization method to design fluidic devices in a Stokes flow context. Our approach is featured by its capability in accommodating a broad spectrum of boundary conditions at the solid-fluid interface. Our key contribution is an anisotropic and differentiable constitutive model that unifies the representation of different phases and boundary conditions in a Stokes model, enabling a topology optimization method that can synthesize novel structures with accurate boundary conditions from a background grid discretization. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by conducting several fluidic system design tasks with over four million design parameters.