Robotic manipulators require careful structural design to achieve high performance, adequate strength, and reduced material consumption. Additive manufacturing (AM), particularly 3D printing, offers an effective approach for rapid prototyping and design optimization of robotic components. In this work, numerical simulations were performed in ANSYS Workbench to evaluate the structural behavior of a robotic manipulator fabricated using different polymer materials, including nylon, polylactic acid (PLA), and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). Topology optimization was applied to reduce the mass of the manipulator while maintaining structural integrity under identical boundary and payload conditions. Comparative analyses were conducted to investigate the stress, strain, and deformation characteristics of the manipulator for different materials and design configurations, including optimized and non-optimized models. The simulation results indicate that the topology-optimized PLA manipulator exhibits superior structural performance, reduced deformation, and high dimensional accuracy compared to the other materials considered. The study demonstrates the potential of combining topology optimization with additive manufacturing techniques for the efficient design of lightweight robotic manipulators.
Rai et al. (Sat,) studied this question.