Evolutionary structural optimisation of dynamically loaded components in consideration of fatigue life

This paper presents an evolutionary structural optimisation strategy based on the concept of repeatedly removing sets of finite elements with the highest fatigue life. The practical application of the proposed strategy required the development of: the most appropriate stress calculation method, a suitable fatigue life evaluation technique and code to select and remove elements with the highest fatigue life. Results obtained using code written to implement the proposed optimisation strategy appear to be very promising, compared to corresponding results obtained using other optimisation methods. The proposed technique was found to be particularly powerful in optimising dynamically loaded components starting from basic ground structures.