Topology Optimization – unconventional approaches using the Generalized Finite Element Method and the Stable Generalized Finite Element Method

• Autor(a) principal: Arruda,Lucas Sardinha de
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Martim,Matheus Baarini, Góis,Wesley, de Lima,Cícero Ribeiro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Latin American journal of solids and structures (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1679-78252022000300509
• topic: Generalized Finite Element Method; Stable Generalized Finite Element Method; Topology Optimization; Checkerboard Pattern

Abstract The Structural Optimization process has an increasing importance in industry and academic fields, assisting in the development of designs at the initial stages of a project. Nowadays, the structural optimization methodology can be conducted by Topology Optimization Method (TOM), which is an efficiently combination of the Finite Element Method (FEM) with an optimization algorithm, in order to find the optimized material distribution inside a given design domain subjected to a set of constraints. Application of the FEM in TOM suffers from a series of instability problems, being one of them the checkerboard pattern. This paper investigates the impact of the Generalized Finite Element Method (GFEM) and Stable Generalized Finite Element Method (SGFEM) in the implementation of the TOM algorithm. This work shows that these unconventional FEM formulations are able to solve most of the checkerboard pattern problem when combined with an enriched mesh designed specifically to each example evaluated. Significant improvement in results of the topology optimization is achieved when compared to the conventional formulation of TOM.