IRA assisted MMC-based topology optimization method
For researchers in structural topology optimization, this method offers a way to reduce expensive finite element computations while maintaining solution quality.
This paper integrates an Iterative Reanalysis Approximation (IRA) with Moving Morphable Components (MMCs) to reduce computational cost in topology optimization, achieving significant time savings without sacrificing accuracy on benchmark problems.
An Iterative Reanalysis Approximation (IRA) is integrated with the Moving Morphable Components (MMCs) based topology optimization (IRA-MMC) in this study. Compared with other classical topology optimization methods, the Finite Element (FE) based solver is replaced with the suggested IRA method. In this way, the expensive computational cost can be significantly saved by several nested iterations. The optimization of linearly elastic planar structures is constructed by the MMC, the specifically geometric parameters of which are taken as design variables to acquire explicitly geometric boundary. In the suggested algorithm, a hybrid optimizer based on the Method of Moving Asymptotes (MMA) approach and the Globally Convergent version of the Method of Moving Asymptotes (GCMMA) is suggested to improve convergence ratio and avoid local optimum. The proposed approach is evaluated by some classical benchmark problems in topology optimization, where the results show significant time saving without compromising accuracy.