Sensitivity and optimisation procedures for truss structures under large displacement

The work presented here focuses on the development of suitable discretised formulations, for large-displacement shape and non-shape design sensitivity analysis (DSA), which enable the straightforward incorporation of structural optimisation into established finite element analysis (FEA) codes. For the generalised displacement-based functional the design sensitivity vector has been expressed in terms of displacement sensitivity. The Total Lagrangian formulation is utilised for modelling of large deformation of truss structures. The variational formulation of the sensitivity analysis procedure is discretised by using \"pseudo\" - finite elements, Results are presented for the sensitivity analysis and optimisation of standard truss structures. For the purposes of this work, the analysis and optimisation procedures outlined below are incorporated into the FEA code ABAQUS.