Atypical design optimisation of structures: case studies

This paper presents three case studies on structural optimisation. In the first case study a nonconventional approach is adopted to deliver an integrated design of trusses. This integrated design method, compared to traditional integrated design methods, while is significantly less demanding in terms of computational power, produces reasonable solutions, superior to sequential designs. This is realised by defining a new parameter connecting design qualities in one domain to design variables in another. The second case study, defined on topology (aerodynamic) optimisation of wind turbine blades, describes a nonconventional crossover method, allowing incorporating more domain specific knowledge in the search. The third case study explains a software tool developed for optimisation of cellular structures, taking the advantage of high fidelity finite element analysis in ANSYS, integrated in a genetic algorithm.