Design of energy dissipating elastoplastic structures under cyclic loads using topology optimization

A topology optimization approach for designing structures with maximum energy absorption capacity under cyclic loads is proposed. To simulate the Bauschinger effect in materials under cyclic loads, Prager and the Armstrong-Frederick kinematic hardening rules are considered together with the von Mises plasticity in the optimization process. Path-dependent sensitivities are derived analytically using the adjoint method, which are further verified by the central difference method. Effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on several examples. Results show that the optimized designs with kinematic hardening are remarkably different from the ones obtained with isotropic hardening and are highly dependent on the loading patterns.