Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering

Evolutionary Static Topology Optimization

of Cyclic-symmetry Structures

GAO Tong ZHANG Weihong ZHU Jihong TANG Xinggang

(Mechatronic School, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072)

Abstract: The topology optimization of cyclic-symmetry structures is studied by means of bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) method. Due to the retention of non-uniform finite element discretization relative to one such type of structures, it is found that the sensitivity result depends upon the volume of the concerned finite element. As a result, different finite element discretizations will change the element removal/growth sequence in the BESO procedure. For this reason, a new concept of element sensitivity density is proposed to avoid the element-volume-dependence of the optimal design. Meanwhile, a new volume-weighted filtering technique is developed to control the checkerboard for the corresponding mesh. To verify the proposed method, a variety of numerical tests related to the concentrated load are studied in detail. Discussions show that the size effects of basic cells are important.

Key words: Cyclic-symmetry structure Topology optimization Evolutionary structural optimization Sensitivity density Filtering technique Size effect

CLC No: TU318

国家自然科学基金(90405016, 10676028)、航空科学基金(04B53080, 2006ZA53006)、国家重点基础研究发展计划(973计划, 2006CB601205)和国家高技术研究发展计划(863计划, 2006AA04Z122)资助项目. Received 20070307, received in revised form 20070923

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