SHAPE SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF OPTIMAL COMPLIANCE FUNCTIONALS

This paper deals with the shape design sensitivity analysis of domain- dependent functionals that arise in optimal compliance design for simu ltaneous optimization of material and structure. Recent work has shown that, for a representation of material properties in the most general form possible, analytical forms of the optimized compliance functiona ls can be derived. It is these functionals that are considered. The re duced structural optimization problem is considered in a displacements -only formulation and in a stress-based sizing design formulation, cov ering the possibility of mechanical contact in both cases. The analysi s provides the necessary information for considering a combination of classical shape design and the possibility of topology design using ex tremal materials, offering among others the possibility to consider pr essure loads in topology design.