Thermoelastic structural topology optimization based on moving morphable components framework

Abstract

This study investigates structural topology optimization of thermoelastic structures considering two kinds of objectives of minimum structural compliance and elastic strain energy with a specified available volume constraint. To explicitly express the configuration evolution in the structural topology optimization under combination of mechanical and thermal load conditions, the moving morphable components (MMC) framework is adopted. Based on the characteristics of the MMC framework, the number of design variables can be reduced substantially. Corresponding optimization formulation in the MMC topology optimization framework and numerical solution procedures are developed for several numerical examples. Different optimization results are obtained with structural compliance and elastic strain energy as objectives, respectively, for thermoelastic problems. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization formulation is validated by the numerical examples. It is revealed that for the optimization design of the thermoelastic structural strength, the objective function with the minimum structural strain energy can achieve a better performance than that from structural compliance design.