Multiphase material topology optimization of Mindlin-Reissner plate with nonlinear variable thickness and Winkler foundation

In typical, structural topology optimization plays a significant role to both increase stiffness and save mass of structures in the resulting design. This study contributes to a new numerical approach of topologically optimal design of Mindlin-Reissner plates considering Winkler foundation and mathematical formulations of multi-directional variable thickness of the plate by using multi-materials. While achieving optimal multi-material topologies of the plate with multi-directional variable thickness, the weight information of structures in terms of effective utilization of the material at the appropriate thickness location may be provided for engineers and designers of structures. Besides, numerical techniques of the well-established mixed interpolation of tensorial components 4 element (MITC4) is utilized to overcome a well-known shear locking problem occurring to thin plate models. The well-founded mathematical formulation of topology optimization problem with variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plate structures by using multiple materials is derived in detail as one of main achievements of this article. Numerical examples verify that variable thickness Mindlin-Reissner plates on Winkler foundation have a significant effect on topologically optimal multi-material design results.