An isogeometrical level set topology optimization for plate structures

This study presents topology optimization of plate structures by employing isogeometrical level set method. For structural analysis of plates, the IsoGeometric Analysis (IGA) approach is applied and Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) basis functions are used for approximation of the design domain geometry as well as the unknown deformation field. In this paper, the level set function is parametrized with Radial Basis Functions (RBFs), which is more efficient than the conventional level set method. This approach along with an approximate re-initialization scheme can maintain a smooth level set function during the optimization process and has less dependency on initial designs because of its ability to nucleate new holes inside the design domain. Due to capability of IGA method in modeling complex design domains while maintaining high accuracy in analysis, combination of IGA with RBFs level set method provides a very useful and effective technique for topology optimization problems. Several numerical examples are prepared to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method and obtained optimum topologies are compared with the results of other methods in literature.