Sequential method of topological optimization in multi-component systems

Topology optimization research has focused on structures of a single domain or component. The single component configuration fails to capture the complexity of real multi-component structures. It is necessary to develop new methods and numerical strategies to solve multi-component systems. In this work, we propose a new approach considering a sequential method of topological optimization in multi-component systems. The proposed algorithm for topology optimization of multi-component systems is sequential. It optimizes the first component, the result found is included in the analysis of the optimization of the next component and thus it continues analyzing consecutively all the components until the last one. This methodology is the only one that performs sequential optimization using open-source tools. The implementation of sequential method is developed in four processes: development of the multi-component mesh, numerical structural analysis through the FEM, sensitivity analysis and a final optimization. A comparison is made with an optimization of multi-component systems in a normal way using three commonly seen examples.