Venation-Like Layout Design of Plate's Stiffeners

Traditional orthogonal pattern is ordinarily employed in stiffener configurations of plates in engineering. Layout optimization design of the stiffeners can realize the win-win situation of structure lightweight and bearing property. The existing methods generally transform the challenge into strengthening regional distribution, and the resulting vague regions need identification by post-processing technology. Structure similarity exists between dicotyledonous venation pattern and irregular stiffener distribution. The paper extracted some mechanical factors from the topology regularity and morphogenesis theory of dicotyledonous venation, and static bionic mechanical model was constructed for bionic rib pattern. A new venation growth method with hierarchical veins was proposed based on it. Then typical plate example was designed for proper stiffener distribution, and compared through static experiment.