Enhancing structural topology optimization

The goal of structural optimization is to find the best possible configuration that minimizes the objective function and satisfies a set of constraints. Here we present a method based on the evolutionary structural optimization method, where the quality of the solution is improved by avoiding the chain‐like sets of elements which are sources of potential kinematic instabilities, and by including local error estimators. Both of these enhancements are employed to activate refining the mesh so as to obtain accurate and stable solutions as the volume removal proceeds. Several related contributions of Professor E. Hinton are cited.