| An axisymmetric shell optimization procedure is developed which is a fast, user-friendly and practical tool for design use in disciplines including aerospace, mechanical and civil engineering. The shape and thickness of a shell can be optimized to minimize shell mass, mass/volume ratio or stress with constraints imposed on von Mises stress and local buckling. The procedure was created with the aid of the GENOPT optimization development system (Dr. D. Bushnell, Lockheed Missiles and Space Co) and uses the FAST1 shell analysis program (Prof. C. R. Steele, Stanford University) to perform the constraint analysis. The optimization method used is the modified method of feasible directions.; The procedure is fast because exact analysis methods allow complex shells to be modelled with only a few large shell elements and still retain a sufficiently accurate solution. This is of particular advantage near shell boundaries and intersections which can have small regions of very detailed variation in the solution. Finite element methods would require many small elements to capture accurately this detail with a resulting increase in computation time and model complexity.; Reducing the complexity of the model also reduces the size of the required input and contributes to the simplicity of the procedure. Optimization design variables are the radial and axial coordinates of nodes and the shape parameters and thicknesses of the elements. Thickness distribution within an element can be optimized by specifying the thickness at evenly spaced control points. Spline interpolation is used to provide a smooth thickness variation between the control points. An effective method is developed for reducing the number of required stress constraint equations.; Various shells have been optimized and include models for comparison with published results. Shape, thickness and shape/thickness optimization has been performed on examples including a simple aerobrake, sphere-nozzle intersections, ring reinforced cylinder and elliptical and torispherical tank heads. Convergence of different initial designs to one final design is demonstrated for a shape, thickness and shape/thickness optimization problems. The sphere-nozzle intersection is investigated in detail and the equal area replacement rule for reinforcement is verified for most intersection geometries. |
