ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATION OF WEAKLY COUPLED THERMOELASTOPLASTIC SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS TO WELDMENT DESIGN

A systematic approach for the design of weakly coupled thermoelastopla stic systems is presented. The Newton-Raphson iteration method is used in the solution process so that analytic design sensitivity formulati ons may be efficiently derived via the direct differentiation techniqu e. The derived formulations are suitable for finite element implementa tions. Analysis and sensitivity analysis capabilities are combined wit h numerical optimization to form an optimum design algorithm. To demon strate the algorithm, we optimally design a weldment with respect to m anufacturing and service life aspects.