DESIGN FOR MAXIMAL FLEXIBILITY AS A SIMPLE COMPUTATIONAL MODEL OF DAMAGE

We consider a simple model of damage, where damage is interpreted as t he removal of material from a given truss structure. Occuring damage i n a given scenario is modelled by a damage contribution which maximize s compliance. Assuming linear elasticity this leads to an optimization problem formulated in displacements and a set of variables which desc ribe the damaged material of each bar in the truss. A sequence of such problems models damage as a time-dependent process, i.e. damage evolu tion is considered. A simple ad-hoc-method for the resulting nonconvex problems can be interpreted as a descent algorithm of feasible direct ions which reaches a local optimum in a finite number of steps. Some n umerical examples show the use of the algorithm.