Application of multiplier update method to the minimum weight design of elastic plates

Abstract

This study deals with the minimum weight optimization of arbitrary shaped plates under size, stress, and displacement constraints. The ‘8-nodes isoparametric’ plate element is incorporated with the optimization procedure by using Lagrange multipliers and the Kuhn-Tucker optimality condition. An optimization computer code ARS 2 (Automatic Resizing System 2) is developed and applied to some practical examples. Results reveal that the procedure presented in this paper is quite efficient.