Simultaneously evolutionary optimization of several natural frequencies of a two dimensional structure

This paper presents a solution method, which can be regarded as the further extension of the generalized evolutionary method (Zhao et al. 1998a), for the simultaneous optimization of several different natural frequencies of a structure in general and a two dimensional structure in particular. The main function of the present method is to optimize the topology of a structure so as to simultaneously make several different natural frequencies of interest to be of the corresponding different desired values for the target structure. In order to develop the present method, the new contribution factor of an element is proposed to consider the contribution of an element to the gaps between the currently calculated values for the different natural frequencies of interest and their corresponding desired values in a weighted manner. Using this new contribution factor of an element, the most inefficiently used material can be detected and removed gradually from the design domain of a structure. Through applying the present method to optimize two and three different natural frequencies of a two dimensional structure, it has been demonstrated that it is possible and applicable to use the generalized evolutionary method for tackling the simultaneous optimization of several different natural frequencies of a structure in the structural design.