Modal basis approaches in shape and topology optimization of frequency response problems

Summary The optimal design of mechanical structures subject to periodic excitations within a large frequency interval is quite challenging. In order to avoid bad performances for non‐discretized frequencies, it is necessary to finely discretize the frequency interval, leading to a very large number of state equations. Then, if a standard adjoint‐based approach is used for optimization, the computational cost (both in terms of CPU and memory storage) may be prohibitive for large problems, especially in three space dimensions. The goal of the present work is to introduce two new non‐adjoint approaches for dealing with frequency response problems in shape and topology optimization. In both cases, we rely on a classical modal basis approach to compute the states, solutions of the direct problems. In the first method, we do not use any adjoint but rather directly compute the shape derivatives of the eigenmodes in the modal basis. In the second method, we compute the adjoints of the standard approach by using again the modal basis. The numerical cost of these two new strategies are much smaller than the usual ones if the number of modes in the modal basis is much smaller than the number of discretized excitation frequencies. We present numerical examples for the minimization of the dynamic compliance in two and three space dimensions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.