Anna Forrester
Autodesk and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have signed an 18-month cooperative research and development agreement to study the design of advanced materials using additive manufacturing, architected design and material modeling techniques.
LLNL said Monday its researchers will use Autodesk’s design software to produce 3-D printed protective helmets as part of a test case aimed at improving design performance.
“Giving the software goals and constraints as input, then allowing the computer to synthesize form and optimize across multiple materials, will lead to the discovery of unexpected, high-performing designs that would not have otherwise been pursued,” said Mark Davis, senior director of design research at Autodesk.
According to LLNL, the team will work to analyze the performance of the produced material microstructures to determine the helmet design that meets desired specifications in weight, durability and cost, among others.
Materials engineer Eric Duoss and computational engineer Dan White are the co-principal investigators from the lab, while Francesco Lorio is the primary investigator from Autodesk.
“One of the important things we hope to gain from this CRADA is to know what a great helmet design looks like, and we aim to build and test components of those helmet designs,” Duoss said.
