A multi-resolution method for 3D multi-material topology optimization

This paper presents a multi-resolution implementation in 3D for multi-material topology optimization problem. An alternating active-phase algorithm where the problem at hand is divided into a series of the traditional material-void phase topology optimization is employed for the multi-material problem. Different levels of discretization are used for the displacement mesh, design variable mesh and density mesh which provides higher resolution designs for the solutions. A projection scheme is employed to compute the element densities from design variables and control the length scale of the material density. Simple block coordinate descent method similar to the Gauss-Seidel technique is used to solve the subproblems. Several 3D numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the ease and the effectiveness of the proposed implementation. Incorporating the multi-resolution method into the multi-material approach, robust designs with improved resolution can be achieved for real life problems with complex geometries. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.