A LEVEL SET METHOD FOR STRUCTURAL TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION WITH MULTI-CONSTRAINTS AND MULTI-MATERIALS

Combining the vector level set model,the shape sensitivity analysis theory with the gradient projection technique,a level set method for topology optimization with multi-constraints and multi-materials is presented in this paper.The method implicitly describes structural material in- terfaces by the vector level set and achieves the optimal shape and topology through the continuous evolution of the material interfaces in the structure.In order to increase computational efficiency for a fast convergence,an appropriate nonlinear speed mapping is established in the tangential space of the active constraints.Meanwhile,in order to overcome the numerical instability of general topology opti- mization problems,the regularization with the mean curvature flow is utilized to maintain the interface smoothness during the optimization process.The numerical examples demonstrate that the approach possesses a good flexibility in handling topological changes and gives an interface representation in a high fidelity,compared with other methods based on explicit boundary variations in the literature.

Level set method for numerical simulation of a cavitation bubble,its growth, collapse and rebound near a rigid wall

A level set method of non-uniform grids is used to simulate the whole evolution of a cavitation bubble, including its growth, collapse and rebound near a rigid wall. Single-phase Navier-Stokes equation in the liquid region is solved by MAC projection algorithm combined with second-order ENO scheme for the advection terms. The moving inter-face is captured by the level set function, and the interface velocity is resolved by ＂one-side＂ velocity extension from the liquid region to the bubble region, complementing the second-order weighted least squares method across the interface and projection inside bubble. The use of non-uniform grid overcomes the difficulty caused by the large computational domain and very small bubble size. The computation is very stable without suffering from large flow-field gradients, and the results are in good agreements with other studies. The bubble interface kinematics, dynamics and its effect on the wall are highlighted, which shows that the code can effectively capture the ＂shock wave＂-like pressure and velocity at jet impact, toroidal bubble, and complicated pressure structure with peak, plateau and valley in the later stage of bubble oscillating.

Simulation of Non-isothermal Injection Molding for a Non-Newtonian Fluid by Level Set Method

A non-isothermal injection molding process for a non-Newtonian viscous pseudoplastic fluid is simulated.A conservative interface capturing technique and the flow field solving method are coupled to perform a dynamic simulation.The validity of the numerical method is verified by a benchmark problem.The melt interface evolution versus time is captured and the physical quantities such as temperature,velocity and pressure at each time step are obtained with corresponding analysis.A"frozen skin"layer with the thickness increasing versus time during the injection process is found.The fact that the"frozen skin"layer can be reduced by increasing the injection velocity is numerically verified.The fountain flow phenomenon near the melt interface is also captured.Moreover,comparisons with the non-isothermal Newtonian case show that the curvatures of the interface arcs and the pressure contours near the horizontal mid-line of the cavity for the non-Newtonian pseudoplastic case is larger than that for the Newtonian case.The velocity profiles are different at different positions for the non-Newtonian pseudoplastic case,while in the case of Newtonian flow the velocity profiles are parabolic and almost the same at different positions.

Structural Topology Design of Container Ship Based on Knowledge-Based Engineering and Level Set Method

Knowledge-Based Engineering （KBE） is introduced into the ship structural design in this paper. From the implementation of KBE, the design solutions for both Rules Design Method （RDM） and Interpolation Design Method （IDM） are generated. The corresponding Finite Element （FE） models are generated. Topological design of the longitudinal structures is studied where the Gaussian Process （GP） is employed to build the surrogate model for FE analysis. Multi-objective optimization methods inspired by Pareto Front are used to reduce the design tank weight and outer surface area simultaneously. Additionally, an enhanced Level Set Method （LSM） which employs implicit algorithm is applied to the topological design of typical bracket plate which is used extensively in ship structures. Two different sets of boundary conditions are considered. The proposed methods show satisfactory efficiency and accuracy.

LEVEL SET METHOD FOR TOPOLOGICAL OPTIMIZATION APPLYING TO STRUCTURE, MECHANISM AND MATERIAL DESIGNS

Based on a level set model, a topology optimization method has been suggestedrecently. It uses a level set to express the moving structural boundary, which can flexibly handlecomplex topological changes. By combining vector level set models with gradient projectiontechnology, the level set method for topological optimization is extended to a topologicaloptimization problem with multi-constraints, multi-materials and multi-load cases. Meanwhile, anappropriate nonlinear speed, mapping is established in the tangential space of the activeconstraints for a fast convergence. Then the method is applied to structure designs, mechanism andmaterial designs by a number of benchmark examples. Finally, in order to further improvecomputational efficiency and overcome the difficulty that the level set method cannot generate newmaterial interfaces during the optimization process, the topological derivative analysis isincorporated into the level set method for topological optimization, and a topological derivativeand level set algorithm for topological optimization is proposed.

Numerical simulation of single bubble rising in shear-thinning fluids by level set method

The behavior of single bubble rising in quiescent shear-thinning tlmds was lnvestlgateO numerically by level set metnoa. number of bubbles in a large range of Reynolds number and Eotvos number were investigated including spherical, oblate and spherical. The bubble shape and drag coefficient were compared with experimental results. It is observed that the simulated results show good conformity to experimental results over a wide range of Reynolds number. In addition, the detailed flow field based on the reference coordinate system moving with the bubble is obtained, and the relationship among flow field, bubble shape and velocity is discussed.

3D Multiphase Piecewise Constant Level Set Method Based on Graph Cut Minimization

Segmentation of three-dimensional(3D) complicated structures is of great importance for many real applications.In this work we combine graph cut minimization method with a variant of the level set idea for 3D segmentation based on the Mumford-Shah model.Compared with the traditional approach for solving the Euler-Lagrange equation we do not need to solve any partial differential equations.Instead,the minimum cut on a special designed graph need to be computed.The method is tested on data with complicated structures.It is rather stable with respect to initial value and the algorithm is nearly parameter free.Experiments show that it can solve large problems much faster than traditional approaches.

New normalized nonlocal hybrid level set method for image segmentation

This article introduces a new normalized nonlocal hybrid level set method for image segmentation.Due to intensity overlapping,blurred edges with complex backgrounds,simple intensity and texture information,such kind of image segmentation is still a challenging task.The proposed method uses both the region and boundary information to achieve accurate segmentation results.The region information can help to identify rough region of interest and prevent the boundary leakage problem.It makes use of normalized nonlocal comparisons between pairs of patches in each region,and a heuristic intensity model is proposed to suppress irrelevant strong edges and constrain the segmentation.The boundary information can help to detect the precise location of the target object,it makes use of the geodesic active contour model to obtain the target boundary.The corresponding variational segmentation problem is implemented by a level set formulation.We use an internal energy term for geometric active contours to penalize the deviation of the level set function from a signed distance function.At last,experimental results on synthetic images and real images are shown in the paper with promising results.

The shape optimization of the arterial graft design by level set methods

The goal of the arterial graft design problem is to find an optimal graft built on an occluded artery, which can be mathematically modeled by a fluid based shape optimization problem. The smoothness of the graft is one of the important aspects in the arterial graft design problem since it affects the flow of the blood significantly. As an attractive design tool for this problem, level set methods are quite efficient for obtaining better shape of the graft. In this paper, a cubic spline level set method and a radial basis function level set method are designed to solve the arterial graft design problem. In both approaches, the shape of the arterial graft is implicitly tracked by the zero-level contour of a level set function and a high level of smoothness of the graft is achieved. Numerical results show the efficiency of the algorithms in the arterial graft design.

A LEVEL SET METHOD FOR MICROSTRUCTURE DESIGN OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Based on a level set model and the homogenization theory, an optimization al- gorithm for ?nding the optimal con?guration of the microstructure with speci?ed properties is proposed, which extends current research on the level set method for structure topology opti- mization. The method proposed employs a level set model to implicitly describe the material interfaces of the microstructure and a Hamilton-Jacobi equation to continuously evolve the ma- terial interfaces until an optimal design is achieved. Meanwhile, the moving velocities of level set are obtained by conducting sensitivity analysis and gradient projection. Besides, how to handle the violated constraints is also discussed in the level set method for topological optimization, and a return-mapping algorithm is constructed. Numerical examples show that the method exhibits outstanding ?exibility of handling topological changes and ?delity of material interface represen- tation as compared with other conventional methods in literatures.

A Parameter-Free Approach to Determine the Lagrange Multiplier in the Level Set Method by Using the BESO

A parameter-free approach is proposed to determine the Lagrange multiplier for the constraint of material volume in the level set method.It is inspired by the procedure of determining the threshold of sensitivity number in the BESO method.It first computes the difference between the volume of current design and the upper bound of volume.Then,the Lagrange multiplier is regarded as the threshold of sensitivity number to remove the redundant material.Numerical examples proved that this approach is effective to constrain the volume.More importantly,there is no parameter in the proposed approach,which makes it convenient to use.In addition,the convergence is stable,and there is no big oscillation.

Topology and Shape Optimization of 2-D and 3-D Micro-ArchitecturedThermoelastic Metamaterials Using a Parametric Level Set Method

2-D and 3-D micro-architectured multiphase thermoelastic metamaterials are designed and analyzed using a parametric level set method for topology optimization and the finite element method.An asymptotic homogenization approach is employed to obtain the effective thermoelastic properties of the multiphase metamaterials.Theε-constraint multi-objective optimization method is adopted in the formulation.The coefficient of thermal expansion(CTE)and Poisson’s ratio(PR)are chosen as two objective functions,with the CTE optimized and the PR treated as a constraint.The optimization problems are solved by using the method of moving asymptotes.Effective isotropic and anisotropic CTEs and stiffness constants are obtained for the topologically optimized metamaterials with prescribed values of PR under the constraints of specified effective bulk modulus,volume fractions and material symmetry.Two solid materials along with one additional void phase are involved in each of the 2-D and 3-D optimal design examples.The numerical results reveal that the newly proposed approach can integrate shape and topology optimizations and lead to optimal microstructures with distinct topological boundaries.The current method can topologically optimize metamaterials with a positive,negative or zero CTE and a positive,negative or zero Poisson’s ratio.

New approach to develop a 3D non-isothermal computational framework for injection molding process based on level set method

The simulation of three-dimensional （3D） non-isothermal, non-Newtonian fluid filling process is an extremely difficult task and remains a challenging problem, which includes polymer melt flow with free surface coupled with transient heat transfer. This paper presents a full 3D non-isothermal two-phase flow model to predict the complex flow in melt filling process, where the Cross-WLF model is applied to characterize the rheological behav- ior of polymer melt. The governing equations are solved using finite volume method with SIMPLEC algorithm on collocated grids and the melt front is accurately captured by a high resolution level set method. A domain exten- sion technique is adopted to deal with the complex cavities, which greatly reduces the computational burden. To verify the validity of the developed 3D approach, the melts filling processes in two thin rectangular cavities （one of them with a cylindrical insert） are simulated. The predicted melt front interfaces are in good agreement with the experiment and commercial software prediction. For a case with a rather complex cavity, the dynamic filling process in a hemispherical shell is successfully simulated. All of the numerical results show that the developed numerical procedure can provide a reasonable orediction for injection molding process.

Segmentation of Bacteria Image Based on Level Set Method

In biology ferment engineering,accurate statistics of the quantity of bacteria is one of the most important subjects. In this paper,the quantity of bacteria which was observed traditionally manuauy can be detected automatically. Image acquisition and processing system is designed to accomplish image preprocessing,image segmentation and statistics of the quantity of bacteria. Segmentation of bacteria images is successfully realized by means of a region-based level set method and then the quantity of bacteria is computed precisely,which plays an important role in optimizing the growth conditions of bacteria.

INTERACTION OF A SOLITARY WAVE AND A FRONT STEP SIMULATED BY LEVEL SET METHOD

As a new method, the Level Set method had been developed to compute the interface of two-phase flow. The basic mathematical theory and the detailed method to solve the free surface hydrodynamic problem had been investigated. By using the Level Set method, the transformation of a solitary wave over a front step was simulated. The results were in good agreement with laboratory experiments.

Modeling OH transport phenomena in cold plasma discharges using the level set method

Cold atmospheric plasmas(CAPs)have attracted considerable interest in the field of plasma medicine.Generated reactive species such as hydroxyl(OH)species play an important role in applications of CAPs.Transportation of OH species towards the target and distribution of these OH species in the plasma plume play an important role in the applications of plasma medicine.In the present work,a computational model was built to simulate the transportation and distribution of OH species in CAP discharges,which was based on the level set method to dynamically track the propagation of plasma carrier gas in air.A reaction term was incorporated for the OH species.The OH species tended to diffuse around the main stream of the carrier gas,and thus covered larger radial and axial distances.A CAP discharge onto a skin layer led to the largest accumulation of OH species at the central part of the exposed area.The distribution of OH species on the skin was asymmetric,which agreed with experiments.The computational model itself and the obtained results would be useful for future development of plasma medicine.

LEVEL SET METHODS BASED ON DISTANCE FUNCTION

Some basic problems on the level set methods were discussed, such as the method used to preserve the distance junction , the existence and uniqueness of solution for the level set equations. The main contribution is to prove that in a neighborhood of the initial zero level set, the level set equations with the restriction of the distance function have a unique solution, which must be the signed distance function with respect to the evolving surface. Some skillful approaches were used: Noticing that any solution for the original equation was a distance function, the original level set equations were transformed into a simpler alternative form. Moreover, since the new system was not a classical one, the system was transformed into an ordinary one, for which the implicit function method was adopted.

Liquid-Gas Two-Phase Flow Simulation in Mold Filling Process with Level Set Method

Air entrapped in liquid metal during the mold filling process seriously affects the casting quality, thus it is important to track its behavior in the mold cavity. A liquid-gas two-phase flow model is developed to describe the mold filling process and predict the air entrapment defect. The model is based on the combination of SOLA and Level Set Method. The pressure and velocity fields are calculated by SOLA,and the interface movement is simulated by Level Set method as the most common interface tracking method in recent years.In order to validate the feasibility of the model,the liquid-gas two-phase simulation results were tested by the broken dam problem and the S-shaped experiment. Comparison between the experiments and simulation results show that Level Set method might be a very promising tool in two-phase flow simulation during the mold filling process.

Modeling of the Saltwater Intrusion Using the Level Set Method. Application to Henry’s Problem

The salt intrusion phenomenon is caused by overexploitation of aquifers in coastal areas. This physical phenomenon has been the subject of numerous studies and numerous methods have been proposed, with the aim of protecting the quality of the water in these aquifers. This work proposes a two-dimensional saline intrusion model using the sharp interface approach and the level set method. It consists of a parabolic equation modeling the underground flow and a hyperbolic Equation (the level set equation) which makes it possible to track the evolution of the interface. High-order numerical schemes such as the space scheme WENO5 and the third-order time scheme TVD-RK were used for the numerical resolution of the hyperbolic equation. To limit the tightening of the contour curves of the level set function, the redistanciation or reinitialization algorithm proposed by Sussma et al. (1994) was used. To ensure the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method, two tests relating to the standard Henry problem and the modified Henry problem were performed. Recall that Henry’s problem uses the variable density modeling approach in a confined and homogeneous aquifer. By comparing the results obtained by the level set method with reinitialization (LSMR) and those obtained by Henry (1964), and by Simpson and Clement (2004), we see in the two test cases that the level set method reproduces well the toe, the tip and the behaviour of the interface. These results correspond to the results obtained by Abarca for Henry’s problem with constant dispersion coefficients. The results obtained with LSMR, reproduced the interface with a slight spacing compared to those obtained by Henry. According to Abarca (2006), this spacing is due to the absence of the longitudinal and transversal dispersion coefficients in the model.

Solving Two-Dimensional Moving-Boundary Problems with Meshless and Level Set Method

During the past decade, increasing attention has been given to the development of meshless methods using radial basis functions for the numerical solution of Partial Differential Equations （PDEs）. A level set method is a promising design tool for tracking, modelling and simulating the motion of free boundaries in fluid mechanics, combustion, computer animation and image processing. In the conventional level set methods, the level set equation is solved to evolve the interface using a capturing Eulerian approach. The solving procedure requires an appropriate choice of the upwind schemes, reinitialization, etc. Our goal is to include Multiquadric Radial Basis Functions （MQ RBFs） into the level set method to construct a more efficient approach and stabilize the solution process with the adaptive greedy algorithm. This paper presents an alternative approach to the conventional level set methods for solving moving-boundary problems. The solution was compared to the solution calculated by the exact explicit lime integration scheme. The examples show that MQ RBFs and adaptive greedy algorithm is a very promising calculation scheme.