| A genetic algorithm approach is presented for optimum topology design of 2-dimensional plates. The aim of topology optimization is to find a geometric configuration of a 2-dimension structural component with minimum weight and satisfies a displacement constraint. Design shapes are represented as arrays of boolean pixels or bit-arrays.; A 2-dimensional design domain is discretized into small, square elements. Those elements are represented as boolean pixels or bit-strings with values of 1 and 0 to signify the states of material and void, respectively. A genetic algorithm, a stochastic optimization technique based on the theory of natural selection, is applied to search for the feasible shape design with minimum weight. New operators of genetic algorithm have been developed for current research work. A finite element analysis is required to evaluate the fitness function and displacement constraint. The present approach is quite different from the deterministic method of homogenization techniques. The topology optimization is implemented using MATLAB to successfully accomplish the task. |
