Topology Optimization Through Material Cloud Method

A material cloud method, which is a new topology optimization method, is presented. In MCM, an optimal structure can be found out by manipulating sizes and positions of material clouds, which are lumps of material with specified properties. A numerical analysis for a specific distribution of material clouds is carried out using fixed background finite element mesh. Optimal material distribution can be element-wisely extracted from material clouds' distribution. In MCM, an expansion-reduction procedure of design domain for finding out better optimal solution can be naturally realized. Also the convergence of material distribution is faster and well-defined material distribution with fewer intermediate densities can be obtained. In addition, the control of minimum-member sizes in the material distribution can be realized to some extent. In this paper, basic concept of MCM is introduced, and formulation and optimization results of MCM are compared with those of the traditional density distribution method(DDM).