Evolutionary Topological Design of Two Dimensional Composite Structures
Sedat SAVAŞ

Abstract
This paper presents topological design of two dimensional composite structures using evolutionary fully stressed design technique. The basic idea of this method is to reach to a topology where the stress distribution is uniform under the external loading. In order to achieve this, material is removed from the low stressed parts while new material is added to the higher stressed regions. The iterative topological process is initiated by first discretizing the two dimensional design space by eight node solid elements. Finite element analysis of the system is then carried out under the external loading and maximum principle stresses are calculated. The principal stresses are compared with the threshold stress value and elements that have lower stress values are removed from the design space. New elements are added to the areas where the stresses have higher values. If stresses exceed the new material limit stresses, the new reinforcement elements are added to area which is carried out highest stresses value. During this process the optimum topology of the structure slowly emerges.

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