Multiresolution shape optimisation with subdivision surfaces

Abstract

We review our recent work on multiresolution shape optimisation and present its application to elastic solids, electrostatic field equations and thin-shells. In the spirit of isogeometric analysis the geometry of the domain is described with subdivision surfaces and different resolutions of the same surface are used for optimisation and analysis. The analysis is performed using a sufficiently fine control mesh with a fixed resolution. During shape optimisation the geometry is updated starting with the coarsest control mesh and then moving on to increasingly finer control meshes. The transfer of data between the geometry and analysis representations is accomplished with subdivision refinement and coarsening operators. Moreover, we discretise elastic solids with the immersed finite element method, electrostatic field equations with the boundary element method and thin-shells with the subdivision finite element technique. In all three discretisation techniques there is no need to generate and maintain an analysis-suitable volume discretisation.