Meeting Abstract

P2-105   -   Generative design offers insight into loading regime Racy, JM*; Summers, AP; Simonitis, LE; Friday Harbor Labs, University of Washington FISHGUY@UW.EDU

We found that generative design is a useful method for analyzing loading regimes in skeletal systems in that the solutions to a loading problem resemble the realized design in an organism. Generative design is an artificial intelligence augmented algorithm that generates families of solutions to structural problems given loading regimes, spatial constraints, material properties, manufacturing constraints, and optimization criteria. The system works iteratively, creating solutions and performing stress analyses to determine ideal outcomes. In the automotive and aerospace fields the results often take on shapes that appear organic, earning them the moniker “alien bones.” We used the Generative Design module of Fusion 360 to investigate the structure of the round stingray (Urobatis halleri) radials. We loaded a right, circular cylinder, to represent a single radial, in either tension, compression, torsion, or a combination of two of these. None of the resultant solutions resembled the natural form. However, when we added a central constraint, meant to stand in for the outside-in nature of perichondral mineralization, both the compressive and compressive+torsional solutions look like the stingray radials, but at different distances from the midline. The pure compression model at smaller loads was a good fit for more distal mineralized radials, while the torsion+compression, at higher loads, was a fit for more medial radials. We conclude that the radials are suited to resist compression with a substantial torsional component at the basal elements. We propose that this is a generally useful tool because there are many other systems of structural support in biology for which the loading regime might be inferred with iterative design.