Hoang Long Cao

Research Project: Improving steel truss efficiency using additive manufacturing and structural optimisation

The aim of this research is to improve the design efficiency of current steel truss design and fabrication by using additive manufacturing (AM). It has long been a valuable experience that the lightest steel design is not the most economical. This is not true for all cases, especially with steel trusses, which need to be changed. In this study, topology optimisation using solid isotropic material with penalisation approach to strengthen the connection joints. These connections are to be verified with the proposed method based on the FEM analysis. The AM application is to be considered with Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) method, similar to Metal Inert Gas (MIG) or Gas Shielded Metal Arc Welding (GMAW), is the most relevant in this study. The wire electrode serves as printing material with the lowest cost and no size restriction. These models, if possible, will be tested with a self-crawler mini robot to achieve more detailed results for the research.