Graded-material design based on phase-field and topology optimization

In the present work we introduce a novel graded-material design based on phase-field and topology optimization. The main novelty of this work comes from the introduction of an additional phase-field variable in the classical single-material phase-field topology optimization algorithm. This new variable is used to grade the material properties in a continuous fashion. Two different numerical examples are discussed, in both of them, we perform sensitivity studies to asses the effects of different model parameters onto the resulting structure. From the presented results we can observe that the proposed algorithm adds additional freedom in the design, exploiting the higher flexibility coming from additive manufacturing technology.