Topological Optimisation of Structures Subjected to Actions from CFD Analysis

Abstract

The project aims to study and apply topological optimization in solving three-dimensional elasticity problems, extending the linear static formulation to problems involving geometrically nonlinear dynamics. This advancement contributes to the study of optimization problems in more general cases, both from a spatial perspective and in incorporating more complex physical phenomena that are relevant to slender and flexible structures.A key feature of this work is the incorporation of a procedure called "weak" coupling between fluid and structure, specifically incorporating wind actions derived from numerical wind tunnel analysis using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The historical responses of these actions are obtained and integrated into the dynamic analysis as input data for the topological optimization method. In this regard, the Bi-Directional Evolutionary Structural Optimization (BESO) method is employed in conjunction with filtering techniques to mitigate issues related to localized undesired energy peaks. These peaks can affect the convergence of the optimization process since sensitivity factors for minimizing the problem are energy-based.The entire project is to be developed using custom routines implemented in FORTRAN for the analysis of nonlinear dynamic elasticity and the BESO optimization method. The C++ language, on the other hand, is employed by the open-source software OpenFOAM for the numerical wind tunnel analysis using CFD.