Performance of the Evolutionary Structural Optimization for Material with Elasto-Plastic Behavior

Topology optimization methods enable designers to find the best structural layout for required structural performances. Most papers in this area have been concerned with the optimization of structures with linear material. However, there are several structures involving nonlinear material.Evolutionary structural optimization (ESO) is based on the simple concept of systematically removing inefficient material from the structure after each finite element analysis, so that the resulting design is gradually evolved to an optimum. This method has been successfully applied to optimum material distribution problems for continuum structures and has been extended to a wide range of structural optimization problems.
This paper is concerned with optimization of elastic and elasto-plastic bodies, based on the von Misses stress criterion using two method.Several examples are presented to verify the proposed optimization methods. Results are compared for these two criteria and against elastic and elasto-plastic material and also with that of the adaptive method. It is concluded that for elastic and elasto-plastic bodies, the behavior of the both criteria is more or less the same and they can be used alternatively.