Topology optimization of structures with heat dissipation and thermo-mechanical coupling based on the EPTO method
Li Wang, Mingtao Cui, Xiaobo Wang, Mengjiao Gao
Abstract
The heat dissipation performance of the structure has an important impact on the normal operation of the structure in the practical application of engineering. Topology optimization of structures considering heat dissipation performance and under thermo-mechanical coupling is achieved by the enhanced proportional topology optimization (EPTO) method. Firstly, the EPTO method is combined with the steady-state heat conduction theory to solve topology optimization of structures with heat dissipation, where the distribution of element density is determined by the proportion of the heat dissipation weakness of the element in the heat dissipation weakness of the structure. Then, the EPTO method is combined with the structural thermo-mechanical coupling analysis theory to solve topology optimization of structures in the thermo-mechanical coupling environment, where the thermal stress coefficient is introduced to reduce the calculation cost during the process of thermal stress solution, and the comprehensive performance of the structures is optimized by weighting the average of structural compliance and heat dissipation weakness. The results of numerical examples show that the proposed method can not only accelerate the iterative convergence of optimization, but also obtain optimization results with smaller values of objective function and better topological configurations.