EVALUATING TOPOLOGY DESIGN OF MATERIAL LAYOUT IN STEEL PLATE STRUCTURES WITH HIGH STIFFNESS AND EIGENFREQUENCY

This study presents optimal distributions of steel materials in steel thin plate structures
determined by using a classical element-wise and the present node-wise topology optimization
design methods for a dynamic problem. More specifically, the present article describes an
application of a node-wise topology optimization technique to the problem of maximizing
fundamental frequency for plane structure. The terms element-and node-wise indicate the use of
element and node densities, respectively, as design parameters on a given design space. For a
dynamic free vibration problem, the objective function in general is to achieve maximum
eigenfrequency with first-order eigenmode subject to a given limited material, since structures
with a high fundamental frequency have a tendency to be reasonably stiff. For both static and
dynamic problems SIMP (Solid Isotropic Microstructure with Penalization for Intermediate
Density) material artificially penalizing the relation between density and stiffness is used in this
study, and an implemented optimization technique is the method of moving asymptotes usually
used for topology optimization. Numerical applications topologically maximizing the first-order
eigenfrequency and depending on element or node densities as design parameters and varied
boundary conditions to verify the present optimization design method provide appropriate
manufacturing information for optimally form-finding of steel materials with Poisson’s ratio of 0.3
into thin plates.