2. An orthopaedic implant is a medical device
designed to replace a bone, joint, or cartilage
due to damage or deformity. For instance, a
patient may need an implant due to a
congenital disability, losing a limb or breaking
a leg.
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3. Topology Optimization (TO) is a method of
computer-based architecture used today to construct
effective designs. This approach is used proactively
by areas such as aerospace, structural engineering,
bio-chemical and mechanical engineering to create
revolutionary design methods that can outperform
manual designs. Topology Optimization is a
mathematical approach used at the level of the
principle of architecture growth. The purpose of this
approach is to more accurately distribute the amount
of material present through the model.
4. In the scientific literature, there are numerous
techniques to perform a topology optimization;
the two most popular methods are the Solid
Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP)
technique and the Evolutionary Structural
Optimization (ESO) technique.
5. The SIMP technique is based on determining the
optimum structure by varying the material density
within the predefined domain. The predefined
domain is discretized in elements and a finite
element (FE) analysis is applied to determine the
structure performance. Conceptually, the SIMP
method comprises a FE analysis of the domain
followed by an optimization of the density of each
element of the domain. Afterwards, the
configuration with the new element densities is
analysed and the optimization is performed again.
The optimization procedure continues until
convergence (Bendsoe et al., 2003).
6. The ESO method was developed by Xie and Steven
(1993) and it has been applied in various
optimization research areas. The ESO method is
based on the simple concept of progressively
removing inefficient material from a structure. The
unneeded material is removed by using a rejection
criterion (RC) which identifies the ineffective
material. This method has the advantage that it is
easy to understand and to learn. Moreover, this
method is also simple to program and to link with
existing computer-aided engineering software e.g.
ANSYS CFX®, ANSYS Fluent® or Nastran®.
