Purpose

Body forces are always applied to structures in the form of the weight of materials. In some cases, they can be neglected in comparison with other applied forces. Nevertheless, there is a wide range of structures in civil and mechanical engineering in which weight or other types of body forces are the main portions of the applied loads. The optimal topology of these structures is investigated in this study.

Design/methodology/approach

Topology optimization plays an increasingly important role in structural design. In this study, the topological derivative under body forces is used in a level-set-based topology optimization method. Instability during the optimization process is addressed, and a heuristic solution is proposed to overcome the challenge. Moreover, body forces in combination with thermal loading are investigated in this study.

Findings

Body forces are design-dependent loads that usually add complexity to the optimization process. Some problems have already been addressed in density-based topology optimization methods. In the present study, the body forces in a topological level-set approach are investigated. This paper finds that the used topological derivative is a flat field that causes some instabilities in the optimization process. The main novelty of this study is a technique used to overcome this challenge by using a weighted combination.

Originality/value

There is a lack of studies on level-set approaches that account for design-dependent body forces and the proposed method helps to understand the challenges posed in such methods. A powerful level-set-based approach is used for this purpose. Several examples are provided to illustrate the efficiency of this method. Moreover, the results show the effect of body forces and thermal loading on the optimal layout of the structures.

中文翻译：

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通过考虑体力改进拓扑水平集方法以找到最佳拓扑

目的

体力总是以材料重量的形式施加到结构上。在某些情况下，与其他施加的力相比，它们可以被忽略。然而，在土木和机械工程中有很多结构，其中重量或其他类型的体力是所施加载荷的主要部分。本研究研究了这些结构的最佳拓扑结构。

设计/方法/方法

拓扑优化在结构设计中扮演着越来越重要的角色。在本研究中，体力作用下的拓扑导数用于基于水平集的拓扑优化方法。解决了优化过程中的不稳定性，并提出了一种启发式解决方案来克服这一挑战。此外，本研究还研究了与热载荷相结合的体力。

发现

体力是与设计相关的载荷，通常会增加优化过程的复杂性。在基于密度的拓扑优化方法中已经解决了一些问题。在本研究中，研究了拓扑水平集方法中的体力。本文发现所使用的拓扑导数是一个平坦的场，在优化过程中会造成一些不稳定性。这项研究的主要新颖之处在于一种通过使用加权组合来克服这一挑战的技术。

原创性/价值

缺乏对考虑设计相关体力的水平集方法的研究，所提出的方法有助于理解此类方法所带来的挑战。为此使用了一种强大的基于水平集的方法。提供了几个例子来说明这种方法的效率。此外，结果显示了体力和热载荷对结构优化布局的影响。