Novel Moving Isosurface Threshold Technique for Optimization of Structures Under Dynamic Loading

Abstract

The optimum design of structures with frequency constraints is of great importance in the aeronautical industry. To avoid severe vibration, it is necessary to shift the fundamental frequency of the structure away from the frequency range of the dynamic loading. This paper develops a novel topology optimization method for optimizing the frequency of structures, expanded from the moving isosurface threshold technique. Optimizations for maximizing a chosen frequency and maximizing the gap between two frequencies are presented. The results of the optimization algorithm are compared with the state-of-the-art in frequency topology optimization. The optimized frequency of the final topology is verified by experimental analysis. The results show that the novel topology optimization algorithm presented in this paper is promising. The method is shown to have good convergence to optimal topologies compared with current techniques. Furthermore, the algorithm produces comparable topologies to the current state-of-the-art. The algorithm is applied to a practical engineering problem for a complete design cycle.