A new element removal method for topology optimization

The purpose of this study was to develop a new element removal method for ESO (Evolutionary Structural Optimization), which is one of the topology optimization methods. ESO starts with the maximum allowable design space and the optimal topology emerges by a process of removal of lowly stressed elements. The element removal ratio of ESO is fixed throughout topology optimization at 1 or 2%. BESO (bidirectional ESO) starts with either the least number of elements connecting the loads to the supports, or an initial design domain that fits within the maximum allowable domain, and the optimal topology evolves by adding or subtracting elements. But the convergence rate of BESO is also very slow. In this paper, a new element removal method for ESO was developed for improvement of the convergence rate. Then it was applied to the same problems as those in papers published previously. From the results, it was verifeid that the convergence rate was significantly improved compared with ESO as well as BESO.