Level Set Based Topological Shape Optimization of Hyper-elastic Nonlinear Structures using Topological Derivatives

A level set based topological shape optimization method for nonlinear structure considering hyper-elastic problems is developed. To relieve significant convergence difficulty in topology optimization of nonlinear structure due to inaccurate tangent stiffness which comes from material penalization of whole domain, explicit boundary for exact tangent stiffness is used by taking advantage of level set function for arbitrary boundary shape. For given arbitrary boundary which is represented by level set function, a Delaunay triangulation scheme is used for current structure discretization instead of using implicit fixed grid. The required velocity field in the actual domain to update the level set equation is determined from the descent direction of Lagrangian derived from optimality conditions. The velocity field outside the actual domain is determined through a velocity extension scheme based on the method suggested by Adalsteinsson and Sethian(1999). The topological derivatives are incorporated into the level set based framework to enable to create holes whenever and wherever necessary during the optimization.