Variation of Reference Strategy - A Novel Approach for Generating Optimized Cutting Patterns of Membrane Structures

Finding the plane shape of the double curved surfaces is a well-known challenge for every design engineer dealing with either fiber reinforced plastics lightweight designs or textile architectural membranes. A novel approach for generating optimized cutting patterns including nonlinear isotropic and anisotropic material behavior is presented. The so-called Variation of Reference Strategy can be seen as an inverse approach, defining the nodal positions in the material configuration as design variables holding the spatial configuration fixed. Thereby, the stress-free state of the cutting pattern which is an important characteristic of the manufacturing process is preserved. In order to demonstrate the abilities and robustness of the Variation of Reference Strategy several numerical examples considering different kind of materials are presented.