2D Minimum Compliance Topology Optimization Based on a Region Partitioning Strategy

This paper presents an extended sequential element rejection and admission (SERA) topology optimization method with a region partitioning strategy. Based on the partitioning of a design domain into solid regions and weak regions, the proposed optimization method sequentially implements finite element analysis (FEA) in these regions. After standard FEA in the solid regions, the boundary displacement of the weak regions is constrained using the numerical solution of the solid regions as Dirichlet boundary conditions. This treatment can alleviate the negative effect of the material interpolation model of the topology optimization method in the weak regions, such as the condition number of the structural global stiffness matrix. For optimization, in which the forward problem requires nonlinear structural analysis, a linear solver can be applied in weak regions to avoid numerical singularities caused by the over-deformed mesh. To enhance the robustness of the proposed method, the nonmanifold point and island are identified and handled separately. The performance of the proposed method is verified by three 2D minimum compliance examples.