Discussion on relationship between minimal energy and curve shapes

Energy minimization has been widely used for constructing curve and surface in the fields such as computer-aided geometric design, computer graphics. However, our testing examples show that energy minimization does not optimize the shape of the curve sometimes. This paper studies the relationship between minimizing strain energy and curve shapes, the study is carried out by constructing a cubic Hermite curve with satisfactory shape. The cubic Hermite curve interpolates the positions and tangent vectors of two given endpoints. Computer simulation technique has become one of the methods of scientific discovery, the study process is carried out by numerical computation and computer simulation technique. Our result shows that： （1） cubic Hermite curves cannot be constructed by solely minimizing the strain energy; （2） by adoption of a local minimum value of the strain energy, the shapes of cubic Hermite curves could be determined for about 60 percent of all cases, some of which have unsatisfactory shapes, however. Based on strain energy model and analysis, a new model is presented for constructing cubic Hermite curves with satisfactory shapes, which is a modification of strain energy model. The new model uses an explicit formula to compute the magnitudes of the two tangent vectors, and has the properties： （1） it is easy to compute; （2） it makes the cubic Hermite curves have satisfactory shapes while holding the good property of minimizing strain energy for some cases in curve construction. The comparison of the new model with the minimum strain energy model is included.

Thermoelastic Structural Topology Optimization Based on Moving Morphable Components Framework

This study investigates structural topology optimization of thermoelastic structures considering two kinds of objectives ofminimumstructural compliance and elastic strain energy with a specified available volume constraint.To explicitly express the configuration evolution in the structural topology optimization under combination of mechanical and thermal load conditions,the moving morphable components(MMC)framework is adopted.Based on the characteristics of the MMC framework,the number of design variables can be reduced substantially.Corresponding optimization formulation in the MMC topology optimization framework and numerical solution procedures are developed for several numerical examples.Different optimization results are obtained with structural compliance and elastic strain energy as objectives,respectively,for thermoelastic problems.The effectiveness of the proposed optimization formulation is validated by the numerical examples.It is revealed that for the optimization design of the thermoelastic structural strength,the objective function with the minimum structural strain energy can achieve a better performance than that from structural compliance design.

A New Fracture Criterion for a Crack under Combined Mode Loading

A new fracture criterion was proposed. The physical explanation of the criterion is that crack will propagate when the minimum strain energy density in iso hoop stress curve reach a critical strength of the material considered. The resulting curve of critical fracture of mixed mode cracks shows that the present fracture is efficient and more accurate than the previous criteria.