OPTIMUM DESIGN OF PLATE STRUCTURES USING 3-POINT APPROXIMATION

Efficient optimum design of plate structures is achieved with stress,d isplacement and frequency constraints. To reduce the computational cos t of optimum design, attempts have been made to reduce the number of s tatic and dynamic analyses required in the process. To achieve this go al, all the quantities that are the output of analysis are approximate d. By substituting these approximate functions into the original desig n problem, an approximate problem is obtained which can be solved by n umerical optimization techniques efficiently. This is one cycle which does not require the analysis of the structure. The resulting solution is used as a starting design point for the next iteration. This proce ss is repeated until the problem converges. The efficiency of the meth od is based on the creation of high quality approximation of the funct ions under consideration and thus reducing the number of iterations. A three-point approximation is developed to approximate the forces and the Rayleigh quotient. Numerical examples are offered and the results are compared with previous published work.