Optimization Design of Cruciform Specimens for Biaxial Testing Based on Genetic Algorithm

The cruciform specimen used for the biaxial tensile tests can well simulate the complex stress states. However, there are no recognized standards or design methods for the design of cruciform specimens. The methodology on how to design and optimize the cruciform specimen was proposed in present research. Parametric modeling of the cruciform specimen preliminary shape was carried out based on the commercial finite element software firstly. Encoding and decoding of the size variables for the cruciform specimen are done. Then the genetic algorithm based on binary coding was employed to optimize the cruciform specimen. The optimization results show that the stress on the central zone is much larger than other zones, and more uniform stress distribution on the central zone was also obtained. The proposed optimization method for cruciform specimen has the high efficiency and applicability.