In design of shell structures, shape optimization is especially important due to the close and sensitive relation between shape and structural behaviour. Relevant aspects of shape optimization of shells related to structural and sensitivity analysis and shape design are studied. In structural analysis of thin structures, standard displacement elements suffer from locking phenomena, yielding inaccurate results. In an optimization process, these effects spread from structural analysis to sensitivity analysis and, as a consequence, through all the optimization loop. The consequences in the optimization result, both quantitatively and qualitatively, may be severe. Regarding the design module, a comparison between CAD- and FE- based design parametrization is done, paying special attention to the flexibility of shape description. A shape control technique to regularize surfaces using intrinsic curvature measures is proposed. This approach allows to obtain smooth designs and avoid wiggly shapes in optimization results obtained when using FE based parametrization.
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In design of shell structures, shape optimization is especially important due to the close and sensitive relation between shape and structural behaviour. Relevant aspects of shape optimization of shells related to structural and sensitivity analysis and shape design are studied. In structural analysis of thin structures, standard displacement elements suffer from locking phenomena, yielding inaccurate results. In an optimization process, these effects spread from structural analysis to sensitivi...
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