Stiffener Pattern Generation of Plate Structures by Growing and Branching Tree Model

摘要

This paper suggests a new and direct design technique to generate stiffener patterns of plate and shell structures. The technique starts from seeds located on supporting edges and loading points, and extends the stiffeners around the seeds. Then, each stiffener will grow by obeying the growing and branching rules like trees, where growing rate of each stiffener will be decided so as to be proportional to the sensitivity of objective with respect to the cross sectional areas of stiffeners. The potential ability of branching will be assigned to the stiffeners greater than specified threshold dimensions, and the best direction of branch is selected depending on the effect of extension of a new branch. During the growing process of stiffener, the volume growth rate is controlled so as to be possible to create new branches and to eliminate degenerated stiffeners. The validity of suggested method is confirmed by the numerical results of various stiffener layout design examples.