Determination of optimum design spaces for topology optimization

✍ Scribed by Ting-Yu Chen; Chia-Yang Lin

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 679 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-874X
• DOI: 10.1016/s0168-874x(00)00004-4

✦ Synopsis

Due to tolerances allowed in deciding the design space in preliminary designs, two approaches are proposed to "nd the optimum design space systematically. One is to use Taguchi orthogonal array to do experiments for some design spaces and "nd optimum topologies in these design spaces. The results of the experiments are used to determine the optimum boundaries of the design space. The other approach is to use genetic algorithms (GA) to search for the optimum boundaries of the design space. To reduce the computational burden of GA, the arti"cial neural network (ANN) is used to replace the time-consuming processes of "nding optimum topologies in all individuals (design spaces) of a generation. The GA search is thus accelerated. Two examples are used to demonstrate and test the approaches. Based on numerical results the methods are reliable, practical, and e$cient.