A new method for simultaneous optimization of a structure with active and passive control variables

Abstract

An optimization method is proposed for the simultaneous design of structural and control systems using the equivalent static loads. The two structural and control systems are not completely independent and need to be considered in a unified fashion. Furthermore, an integrated system design is unavoidable to exhibit a good performance in the time domain. The analysis for the integrated system is conducted for the transient-state in a dynamic manner. The constraints for the structural and control systems are defined in the time domain as well. Therefore, a physically small scale problem in structural analysis easily becomes quite a large scale in an optimization problem. A new equivalent static loads (ESLs) method, which deals with the structural design variables as well as the control design variables, is proposed to solve physically large scale problems. A finite element dynamic equation is defined with control forces and a dynamic response optimization problem is formulated. Linear static response optimization is carried out with the ESLs. The control forces for the linear static response optimization are considered as design variables. Shape variables are utilized to handle the design variables for the control forces. Several examples are solved to validate the proposed method. Copyright ? 2015 by ASME.