# Generative design as a tool to analyse the uncertain loading regimes of intricate skeletal structures

## TL;DR

This paper shows how generative design can help understand the forces that shape complex skeletal structures, like those in batoid pectoral fins.

## Contribution

The novel use of generative design to infer evolutionary loading regimes in intricate skeletal structures.

## Key findings

- Generative design produced structures similar to real batoid radial elements.
- The method reveals likely loading configurations that real radials evolved to withstand.
- This approach is useful for analyzing complex skeletal structures that are hard to study conventionally.

## Abstract

The morphology of a skeletal structure is driven in part by the forces it endures over evolutionary time. We demonstrate that generative design, an iterative engineering tool, can yield insight into the loading regimes of complex skeletal elements. With only a simple model of the spatial constraints and potential forces seen by a skeletal element, we generated analogous structures. We used this technique to provide insights into the specialization of the radial elements of batoid pectoral fins, a case that would be challenging to analyse by conventional means. Particular configurations of generative designs resulted in structures with a morphology remarkably similar to that of real radials. We suggest that these cases reveal the loading configurations that the real radials have evolved to withstand.