This paper on "Design Space Optimization for Adaptive Layout Refinement" was presented at the NAFEMS World Congress on The Evolution of Product Simulation From Established Methods to Virtual Testing & Prototyping - 24-28 April 2001, The Grand Hotel, Lake Como, Italy.

Abstract

An integration of layout optimization of design patches and plate thickness optimization is proposed. In conventional plate optimization, thickness of a design patch is used as a design variable. The design variables are optimized while the layout of the design patches is fixed during an optimization process. The layout is one of the design space features for our problem. A generalized optimization problem called "design space optimization problem" has been proposed in which the layout is also a design feature to be determined.
Starting from an initial design it is made to evolve into a better one; the number of design patches may increase. Since the objective and constraint functions are discrete in terms of the number of design patches, one can not define design sensitivity in usual sense as a derivative. To make this possible, a numerical design continuation method is proposed. A pivot phase is introduced at which directional derivatives can be obtained and used as the sensitivity information. Numerical examples are presented for several cases of loading for plate thickness optimization.