Boundary-Based Shape Design Sensitivity Analysis of Elastostatics Problems

A boundary-based design sensitivity analysis(DSA) technique is proposed for addressing shape optimization issues in the elastostatics problems. Sensitivity formula is derived based on the continuum formulation in a boundary integral form, which consists of the boundary solutions and shape variation vectors. Though the boundary element method(BEM) has been mainly used to obtain the boundary solution, the FEM is used in this paper because this is much more popular, and has greatly improved meshing and computing power recently. The advantage of the boundary DSA is that the shape variation vectors, which are also known as design velocity fields, are needed only on the boundary. Then, the step for determining the design velocity field over the whole domain, which was necessary in the domain-based DSA, is eliminated, making the process easy to implement and efficient. Problem of fillet design is chosen to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method. Accuracy of the sensitivity is good with this method even by employing the free mesh for the FE analysis.