Topology optimization of stiffened plate/shell structures based on adaptive morphogenesis algorithm

This article proposes an adaptive morphogenesis algorithm to design stiffened plate/shell structures in a growth manner. The idea of this work is inspired by researches in leaf venation which indicates that the adaptive growth of leaf vein provides the relatively large structure with an effective reinforcement. This excellent performance is regarded as the contribution of two primary morphological features: branching and hierarchy. To apply the growth mechanism of leaf venation into stiffened plate/shell structures, a mathematical model describing the growth process is established. Based on this, the adaptive morphogenesis algorithm is developed to make stiffeners “grow” step by step. Besides, the “stiffness transforming operation”, a numerical treatment, is introduced to enable stiffeners to grow along arbitrary directions in the FEM model, which guarantees the design more optimized than previous methods. To obtain a further verification of the proposed method, a comparison between the proposed method and three typical methods is implemented. This comparison shows that the proposed method endows the designed object with a more excellent performance than others. Therefore, the proposed method is competent in the stiffened plate/shell structure design.