On the flexible applied boundary and support conditions of compliant mechanisms using customized evolutionary algorithm

Abstract

In structure topology optimization, the applied boundary and support conditions are often fixed in a-priori. These conditions can affect the behavior and the properties of single-piece elastic structures known as compliant mechanisms. In this paper, the same aspect is explored for path generating compliant mechanisms by considering them as design variables and their values are evolved using customized NSGA-II algorithm. Three examples are solved and the innovative facts among the applied boundary and support conditions are presented. The elastic structures are also presented in this paper. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.