Numerical Shape Optimization to Decrease Failure Probability of Ceramic Structures

Ceramic is a material frequently used in industry because of its favorable properties. Common approaches in shape optimization for ceramic structures aim to minimize the tensile stress acting on the component, as it is the main driver for failure. In contrast to this, we follow a more natural approach by minimizing the component’s probability of failure under a given tensile load. Since the fundamental work of Weibull, the probabilistic description of the strength of ceramics is standard and has been widely applied. Here, for the first time, the resulting failure probabilities are used as objective functions in PDE constrained shape optimization. To minimize the probability of failure, we choose a gradient based method combined with a first discretize then optimize approach. For discretization finite elements are used. Using the Lagrangian formalism, the shape gradient via the adjoint equation is calculated at low computational cost. The implementation is verified by comparison of it with a finite difference method applied to a minimal 2d example. Furthermore, we construct shape flows towards an optimal / improved shape in the case of a simple beam and a bended joint.