A deformation mechanism based material model for topology optimization of laminated composite plates and shells

This paper presents a novel deformation mechanism based material model for topology optimization of laminated plates and shells considering large displacements. Discussed firstly are the one-node hinges in optimum designs of plate and shell structures and the numerical issues caused by void elements in geometrical nonlinear analysis. To circumvent these two problems, we propose a new material model in which different penalties are applied to different strain energy terms related to extensional, shear, bending and extensional-bending coupling deformation mechanisms and void elements are removed in nonlinear finite element analysis. An efficient algorithm is developed by using the present material model and the moving iso-surface threshold method. Numerical results are presented for isotropic and composite plates and shells and compared with those available in the literature to validate the present material model. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.