Integrated design of structure and anisotropic material based on the BESO method

Abstract

An Integrated structural and material topology optimization method considering optimal material orientation is presented based the on bi-direction evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) method. It is assumed that the macrostructure is composed of uniform cellular material but with different orientation. The homogenization method is used to calculate the effective material properties which builds a connection between material and structure. The continuous material orientation design variables and the discrete topology design variables are treated hierarchically in an iteration. The principal stress method is adopted and embedded to determine the optimal material orientation, meanwhile the topologies of the macrostructure and its material microstructure are concurrently optimized by using the BESO method. Numerical examples are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm.