Integrated optimization of components’ layout and structural topology with considering the interface stress constraint

Abstract

Structural designs in the engineering field commonly require the prior embedding of several fixed-shape components to satisfy desired performance or functional requirements. In the past few decades, topology optimization has been regarded as an effective approach to deal with the optimization problems of continuous structures embedded with multiple components. However, the interfaces between the host supporting structure and embedded components are assumed perfect-bonded, which may result that the optimal design occurs interface failure and structural damage under extreme or long-time service conditions. In this study, a new topology optimization method of structures with embedded components considering the tension/compression-asymmetric interface stress constraint is proposed under the solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) method framework. This proposed method optimizes simultaneously the topology of the host structure and the layout of embedded components. A new interpolation model is developed to determine interface layers between the host structure and embedded components. Then, interface stress constraints are derived and imposed on each element of interface layers. For relieving the computational burden caused by enormous stress constraints, the global p-norm stress aggregation method is adopted to quantify the peak stresses. Subsequently, the interface stress constraint is introduced into the integrated optimization of multi-component layout and structural topology, the objective function is structural compliance and constraint functions are composed of volume, non-overlapping and tension/compression-asymmetric interface stress constraints. The corresponding sensitivity analyses are computed by using the adjoint method. Several two-dimensional and three-dimensional numerical examples are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.