Topological Design of Microstructures of Materials Containing Multiple Phases of Distinct Poisson’s Ratios

A methodology for achieving the maximum bulk or shear modulus in an elastic composite composed of two isotropic phases with distinct Poisson’s ratios is proposed.A topology optimization algorithm is developed which is capable of finding microstructures with extreme properties very close to theoretical upper bounds.The effective mechanical properties of the designed composite are determined by a numerical homogenization technique.The sensitivities with respect to design variables are derived by simultaneously interpolating Young’smodulus and Poisson’s ratio using different parameters.The so-called solid isotropicmaterial with penalizationmethod is developed to establish the optimization formulation.Maximum bulk or shearmodulus is considered as the objective function,and the volume fraction of constituent phases is taken as constraints.Themethod ofmoving asymptotes is applied to update the design variables.Several 3D numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed structural optimization method.The effects of key parameters such as Poisson’s ratios and volume fractions of constituent phase on the final designs are investigated.A series of novel microstructures are obtained fromthe proposed approach.It is found that the optimized bulk and shearmoduli of all the studied composites are very close to the Hashin-Shtrikman-Walpole bounds.

Computational Simulations of Bone Remodeling under Natural Mechanical Loading or Muscle Malfunction Using Evolutionary Structural Optimization Method

Live bone inherently responds to applied mechanical stimulus by altering its internal tissue composition and ultimately biomechanical properties, structure and function. The final formation may structurally appear inferior by design but complete by function. To understand the loading response, this paper numerically investigated structural remodeling of mature sheep femur using evolutionary structural optimization method (ESO). Femur images from Computed Tomography scanner were used to determine the elastic modulus variation and subsequently construct finite element model of the femur with stiffest elasticity measured. Major muscle forces on dominant phases of healthy sheep gait were imposed on the femur under static mode. ESO was applied to progressively alter the remodeling of numerically simulated femur from its initial to final design by iteratively removing elements with low strain energy density (SED). The computations were repeated with two different mesh sizes to test the convergence. The elements within the medullary canal had low SEDs and therefore were removed during the optimization. The SEDs in the remaining elements varied with angle around the circumference of the shaft. Those elements with low SED were inefficient in supporting the load and thus fundamentally explained how bone remodels itself with less stiff inferior tissue to meet load demand. This was in line with the Wolff’s law of transformation of bone. Tissue growth and remodeling process was found to shape the sheep femur to a mechanically optimized structure and this was initiated by SED in macro-scale according to traditional principle of Wolff’s law.

Layout optimization of steel reinforcement in concrete structure using a truss-continuum model

Owing to advancement in advanced manufacturing technology,the reinforcement design of concrete structures has become an important topic in structural engineering.Based on bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization(BESO),a new approach is developed in this study to optimize the reinforcement layout in steel-reinforced concrete(SRC)structures.This approach combines a minimum compliance objective function with a hybrid trusscontinuum model.Furthermore,a modified bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization(M-BESO)method is proposed to control the level of tensile stress in concrete.To fully utilize the tensile strength of steel and the compressive strength of concrete,the optimization sensitivity of steel in a concrete–steel composite is integrated with the average normal stress of a neighboring concrete.To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedures,reinforcement layout optimizations of a simply supported beam,a corbel,and a wall with a window are conducted.Clear steel trajectories of SRC structures can be obtained using both methods.The area of critical tensile stress in concrete yielded by the M-BESO is more than 40%lower than that yielded by the uniform design and BESO.Hence,the M-BESO facilitates a fully digital workflow that can be extremely effective for improving the design of steel reinforcements in concrete structures.

structures:new solutions and uncommon characteristics James Kirby,Shiwei Zhou,

To investigate the characteristics of optimal fail-safe structures subjected to single and multi-member damage scenarios,we con-sider a pin-jointed cantilever truss with all members directly connected from the load point to the boundary.Two problem formu-lations are considered—minimizing the compliance with a volume constraint and minimizing the volume with stress constraints.Whilst these formulations produce equivalent structures for traditional truss design problems,we find that this is not always the case in the fail-safe setting.Analytical solutions are developed for a three-bar truss under both problem formulations.Damage is modelled as the complete removal of any one member,and a minmax problem is constructed to minimize the compliance or volume of the structure for the worst-case damage scenario.These new analytical solutions provide much needed benchmarks for numerical fail-safe methods.The problems are extended to n-bar systems with damage to multiple members.Results show that as the structural complexity(the number of members in a system)increases,the optimum fail-safe structure tends towards a variation of the nominal two-bar design with overlapping members.From these observations,we then approach the idea of full redundancy through the introduction of parallel substructures into a more complex truss design.We compare our fully redundant truss design with a benchmark fail-safe solution and show that the fully redundant design has significantly better performance and with fewer members.Practically,this suggests that fully redundant structural designs are highly efficient and have the additional benefit of only requiring the computation of the nominal solution.