Sn. Patnaik et al., DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF LARGE STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS WITH SUBSTRUCTURING IN A PARALLEL COMPUTATIONAL ENVIRONMENT, Computing systems in engineering, 5(4-6), 1994, pp. 425-440
Design optimization of large structural systems can be attempted throu
gh a substructure strategy when difficulties are encountered with conv
ergence of such problems. In this strategy the large structure is divi
ded into several smaller substructures, and a subproblem is defined fo
r each substructure. Solution of the large problem can be obtained ite
ratively through repeated solutions of the modest subproblems. Substru
cture strategies, in sequential as well as in parallel computational m
odes on a GRAY YMP multiprocessor computer, have been incorporated int
o the code CometBoards, which is an acronym for Comparative Evaluation
Test Bed of Optimization and Analysis Routines for Design of Structur
es. Three issues, intensive computation, convergence of the iterative
process, and analytically superior optimum, encountered during the imp
lementation of substructure optimization into CometBoards have been so
lved. Coupling between subproblems as well as local and global constra
ints grouping are essential for convergence of the iterative process.
The substructure strategy can produce an analytically superior optimum
different from what can be obtained by regular optimization. For the
problems solved, substructure optimization in a parallel computational
mode made effective use of all assigned processors.