Numerical Simulation of Compliance Variation for a Topology-Optimized Structure

Abstract

Topology optimization is a well-developed tool in the domain of structural design. It generates the optimized topology over a predefined material space, subject to desired objective function and amount of material-reduction. In the obtained "optimized structure", reliability plays a vital role. The ongoing research in this area, explored the possibilities of dealing with uncertainties and errors involved in the design and manufacturing process, statistically. In the present work, few sources of uncertainty like modulus of elasticity, yield stress and applied force are chosen to examine their effects on optimized structure. The variation and uncertainty in these parameters, affect compliance value of the structure, and may cause design failure too. Hence, it is important to simulate the compliance-variation and various possible consequences of failure. In order to achieve these objectives, a methodology is designed, based on Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS), which simulates the realistic conditions numerically. This methodology is implemented on MATLAB, and an MBB- beam problem is simulated for realistic conditions. The results show the variation of compliance from the deterministic value and the strength-reliability is estimated. Presented work will be an aid to the design and analysis phase of topology optimization process, which incorporates the realistic conditions. In addition, it will be very helpful to evaluate the various reliability based topology optimization techniques.