In-plane material filters for the discrete material optimization method

Abstract

This paper presents in-plane material filters for the Discrete Material Optimization method used for optimizing laminated composite structures. The filters make it possible for engineers to specify a minimum length scale which governs the minimum size of areas with constant material continuity. Consequently, engineers can target the available production methods, and thereby increase its manufacturability while the optimizer is free to determine which material to apply together with an optimum location, shape, and size of these areas with constant material continuity. By doing so, engineers no longer have to group elements together in so-called patches, so to statically impose a minimum length scale. The proposed method imposes the minimum length scale through a standard density filter known from topology optimization of isotropic materials. This minimum length scale is generally referred to as the filter radius. However, the results show that the density filter alone gives designs with large measures of non-discreteness. In order to obtain near discrete designs an additional threshold projection filter is applied, so to push the physical design variables towards their discrete bounds. However, because the projection filter is a non-linear function of the design variables, the projected variables have to be re-scaled in a final so-called normalization filter. This is done to prevent the optimizer in creating superior, but non-physical pseudo-materials. The method is demonstrated on a series of minimum compliance examples together with a minimum mass example, and the results show that the method is indeed capable of imposing a minimum length scale onto the optimized layup.