The need to develop method which can improve the shape design efficiency using high quality approximation is being brought up. In this study, to perform shape optimal design of three-dimensional continuum structures an efficient approximation method f...
The need to develop method which can improve the shape design efficiency using high quality approximation is being brought up. In this study, to perform shape optimal design of three-dimensional continuum structures an efficient approximation method for stress constraints is proposed, based on expanding the nodal forces in Taylor series with respect to shape variables. Numerical examples are performed using the 3-D cantilever beam and fixed-fixed beam and compared with other method to demonstrate the efficiency and convergence rate of the Force Approximation method. It is shown that by taking advantage of this high quality approximation, the total number of finite element analysis required for shape optimization of 3-D continuum structures can be reduced significantly, resulting to the same level of efficiency achieved previously in sizing optimization problems. Also, shape representation by super curve technique applied to obtain optimal shape finds useful method.