Casting constraints in structural optimization via a level-set method

Abstract

A novel strategy for handling the molding constraint for cast parts is presented. In a first step, a simple projection method for the velocity field is applied. If the optimized shape violates thickness constraints, this projection method is no longer sufficient and a general molding constraint is applied at the same time with thickness control. We apply an augmented Lagrangian method to impose the constraints and compute a shape derivative for the objective function. We show examples in 3-d. 2. Keywords: Shape and topology optimization, level-set method, casting constraints. Shape and topology optimization via a level-set method [2], [7] has started attracting the interest of an increasing number of researchers and industrial designers over the last years. Beyond its flexibility to perform changes in the topology of the shape, its independence on the objective function to be minimized expands significantly its range of applicability.