A bionic topology optimization method with an additional displacement constraint

Abstract

<abstract><p>Displacement is an important measure of stiffness, and its constraint must be considered in many real engineering designs. However, traditional volume-constrained compliance minimization methods for load-bearing structures do not deal with displacements of practical importance directly. Based on this situation, the paper extends an improved bionic topology optimization method to solve the topology optimization problem with an additional displacement constraint. The updates of density design variables are based on an improved bone remodeling algorithm rather than gradient information employed by traditional methods. An explicit relationship between the threshold in the bone remodeling algorithm and target node displacement is constructed to satisfy displacement constraint. As a result, one will obtain a topology with an optimal cost-weighted sum of stiffness and mass while the target node displacement does not exceed its predefined limit. 2D and 3D examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.</p></abstract>