Recent Progress in Preliminary Design of Mechanical Components with Topology Optimization

Abstract

Since 10 years topology optimization has been trying to bring an efficient answer to the automatic choice of the morphology of mechanical components, i.e. the number and the relative positions of the holes in the structural domains, the number and the nature of the structural members, their connectivity and the character of the connecting joints. This problem is one of the main questions to be addressed during the preliminary design phase of mechanical and structural components. Up to now, the selection of the mechanical morphology has been let to engineers’ experience or to their intuition (which is even worse sometimes). With topology optimization the choice of the morphology can now rely on rational arguments and can be driven with the help of mathematical tools. This has two advantages. At first topology optimization can facilitate the automation of the preliminary design, but it can also improve substantially the performance of new mechanical products, that is, topology optimization can propose original and innovative solutions to engineering problems.