Design of Shape for Visco-Elastic Vibration Isolation Element by Topological and Shape Optimization Methods

Design of geometric shape for visco-elastic vibration isolation elements is frequently based on experiences, intuitions, or trial and errors. Such practices make it often difficult for drastically different or new concepts to come out. In this paper, both a topological method and a shape optimization method are combined together to find out a most desirable isolator shape efficiently by using two commercial engineering programs, ABAQUS and MATLAB. The procedure is divided into two steps. At first, the topology optimization method is employed to find an initial shape, where material density of each finite element is chosen as either 0 or 1 for physical realization. Based on the initial shape, then, finer tuning is done by the boundary movement method. An illustration of the procedure is presented for a vehicle engine mount and the effectiveness will be discussed.