Miche Jansen Department of Civil Engineering, K.U.Leuven
location: MTM 00.013 of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering (Kasteelpark Arenberg 44, B-3001 Heverlee)
ABSTRACT
During the design process engineers are constantly searching for ways to improve the performance of a structure while keeping manufacturing costs as low as possible. Topology optimization is a powerful tool in this respect as it simultaneously optimizes the size, shape and topology of a structure, often leading to new and original solutions.
This seminar will first introduce the density based approach to topology optimization and show how filters are used to control the structural complexity of the solutions.
The use of topology optimization for structural design often leads to slender structures. Slender structures are very sensitive to geometric imperfections such as the misplacement or misalignment of material. In the second part of the seminar, a methodology for robust topology optimization accounting for geometric imperfections due to misplacement of material is presented. A probabilistic approach to robust optimization is followed where the spatial variation of the geometric imperfections is modeled by means of a conditional vector valued random field in the design domain. The method is successfully applied to design structures which are more robust with respect to geometric imperfections.
Two OPTEC professors have been awarded three "Gouden Krijtjes", the yearly teaching awards given by the organization of engineering students (vtk). Prof. Lombaert was awarded the prize for the best course in civil engineering, and Prof. Diehl the prizes for the best professor and the best course in mathematical engineering (where he teaches numerical optimization). They received these awards at the yearly "proffentap" where experienced students taught them how to draft beer professionally.
