Stress constraint-based iterative approach for configuration design

Abstract

This study proposes a stress constraint-based iterative approach for configuration design (SIACD) to address the flaws of iterative structural design approaches, such as evolutionary structural optimization (ESO), bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO), and the fully stressed method, which cannot manage stress constraints directly and have excessive iterations. The proposed SIACD can rapidly obtain the light-weight structural configuration that satisfies stress constraints. Among topology optimization methods, topology optimization with adaptive volume constraint (AVC) is an effective method to rapidly determine the optimal structural configuration that satisfies the stress constraints. We used five design cases, comprising two- and three-dimensional cantilever beams and three-dimensional fixed beams, to test the proposed SIACD and compare it with the three existing topology optimization (or iterative design) methods of AVC, ESO, and BESO. The results indicated that the proposed SIACD demonstrates excellent feasibility.